


The Many Occupations of Percy Weasley (and How Neville Longbottom Suffered Through Every Single One)

by Queen of the Castle (queen_of_the_castle_77)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:31:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_of_the_castle_77/pseuds/Queen%20of%20the%20Castle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From rampant speculation about his sexuality to emergency inter-continental travel in a wetsuit, Neville Longbottom has been through a lot since leaving Hogwarts. Percy Weasley has just happened to be there for most of it, much to Neville's dismay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2008 percy_ficathon for catgoddess. DH compliant.

PART ONE

A high-pitched whistle alerted Neville Longbottom that something was wrong.

He was withdrawing his wand from its protective pocket in his wetsuit even as he broke the surface of the water with a loud splash. He allowed the Bubble-Head charm that was partially obscuring his vision to dissolve away.

He didn't so much spot the man staring at him in astonishment as his attention was yanked towards him by the outburst of what sounded like bewildered cursing issuing from the man's mouth. Neville couldn't really be sure what he was saying, since the noise of the whistle was almost overpowering his speech. And, incidentally, the man also wasn't actually speaking English.

Neville didn't need to understand the words, though, to understand that he was royally screwed.

"Hell," Neville muttered. "Oh hell."

Neville pointed his wand at the man, who looked uncertain whether he should be climbing down to help Neville out of the water or stumbling away from the edge.

"Stupefy!"

The man fell to the ground out of Neville's line of sight, but Neville took the fact that his stunned body hadn't toppled forward into the ocean as a good sign that he probably wasn't hurt. Neville tucked his wand back away and swam towards the sheer ice drop-off that separated him from both his gear and the man who had just stumbled upon him. He grabbed the lowest rung of the ladder he'd spelled for himself earlier that morning and began the tiring climb to the top, dripping near-freezing water all the way up.

The man had collapsed next to Neville's pack, which had clearly been opened and rifled through by the man when he’d happened upon it. It was no wonder Neville’s proximity alarm was blaring so loudly. Neville dug through the sample phials and equipment inside his gear bag and pulled out the presently-spinning item. He touched his wand to it to deactivate it. When the tinny loud noise died away, it left just a ringing echo in his ears. Neville thought that he should have felt relieved that the assault on his hearing had ended, but one look back over to the stunned man was enough to double his anxiety instead.

The man was clearly a Muggle judging from his reaction. He’d witnessed Neville emerging from freezing cold water without even shivering (despite the fact that he was only wearing a thin wetsuit, and even that was more for manoeuvrability in the water than to insulate his body) and without any of the breathing tanks or other equipment Muggles would have needed to survive down there, even had the cold not been an issue for them. He'd also obviously seen Neville's gear, inside which were any number of magical items that were illegal to allow Muggles to have any contact with.

From the Muggle's point of view, Neville should be dead, if not from drowning then certainly from hypothermia.

Neville considered dropping him off at the nearby station and hoping that he would assume he'd imagined seeing Neville. The device that had alerted Neville to the man's presence – a modified Sneakoscope that he'd commissioned specially to alert him when Muggles rather than untrustworthy people were nearby – was intended to alert Neville so that he could stun them _before_ they could discover him. Of course, Neville had forgotten to take into account quite how loud it would have to be for the sound of the alarm to be identified from under the water quick enough to actually help.

It wasn't exactly a new feeling for Neville, but right then he truly felt foolish. He'd known it was risky to work anywhere near any of the Muggle bases. Though there wasn't exactly a huge population anywhere nearby, the possibility of discovery did increase exponentially the nearer he got to an operational station. He had hoped, however, that the Italian base he could see off in the distance was already deserted. It only functioned during the summer and he'd assumed the team had already departed for the winter months. Obviously, Neville thought with some degree of frustration, he'd been wrong. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time.

He wished he'd taken his Gran up on her offer to teach him Muggle-repelling charms before he’d left home. Assuming he could have mastered them (which was a fairly big assumption in his case, granted), they would have come in real handy around about then.

Neville's ability to cast spells had increased in his final years of school and in the two years following. He wouldn't have survived the war if that hadn't been the case. However, his talents in Charms ran towards those spells that were necessary for his work. Normally that was just fine by him. After all, unlike many other wizards just out of school, he could modify the heat of a given area accurate to the degree; after all that time spent adjusting greenhouse heating charms, Neville considered himself something of an expert on that front. He might have been slow to catch on to it, but he _had_ eventually learned the Bubble-head Charm when it became popular in his fifth year (though not soon enough to avoid the worst of the Dungbomb attacks, unfortunately). He could even manage to safely Apparate over slightly longer distances than was average, which came in handy when he had to get to Australia or New Zealand to restock his food and other non-magical supplies.

One thing that Neville could not do, however – something he'd never even attempted to do – was Obliviate someone. He'd never been much good with things involving memory, after all. He was as likely to erase the man's whole personality as to successfully remove just the memory in question, especially since Neville didn't even know the correct wand movement. And he certainly couldn't just wait for the Ministry Obliviators to come along and clean up his mess, as he would have back home; the nearest Obliviator would be thousands of miles away. But nor could he allow this man to go about telling people he'd seen a man emerge from the freezing cold ocean completely unscathed. The Muggles could be a bit thick, sure, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea to take unnecessary chances.

Neville gathered his belongings together and Side-Along Apparated the unidentified man back to his tent, which thankfully was nowhere near any of the bases. The last thing he needed to cap off his day was for someone to walk inside what looked like a tiny little tent and discover an entire flat, cramped though it might be, kept as warm as a summer's day despite a clear lack of Muggle heating or insulation. Or, for that matter, for someone to stumble across the tent and find the man he'd just rendered unconscious. That’d likely be equally difficult to explain.

Neville tossed his bag beside the bed and then awkwardly heaved the man onto the mattress. He collapsed into the lone chair he had pulled up to the card table where he ate his meals. He didn't even bother drying himself off; the localised warming spell that had kept him from freezing in the water hadn't quite worn off yet and the tent itself felt as if there had been a roaring fire going for many hours. He didn't much care that he was dripping on the floor, either. It had been far too long since it had seen any water. Neville, hard-working bachelor that he was, hadn't bothered to properly clean the place in the fourteen months he'd spent in Antarctica thus far. That hardly mattered, though, since it may not ever have been cleaned before that either, judging by its condition when he'd first received it. Strangely, Neville thought it might even smell _better_ than it had started off. His gran had kept all sorts of weird things in there until he'd borrowed it. It had taken months for the rank smell of eggs to finally fade out of existence.

As he waited for his heart to stop hammering quite so violently in his chest, Neville debated with himself about his options. He obviously couldn't stick around as long as the man had any memory of meeting him in strange circumstances. Nor could he afford for the man to go missing for any significant amount of time; surely someone from his base was bound to go out looking for him?

Luckily, for once Neville knew exactly how to get himself out of trouble. Not _easily_ , mind, but it was a manageable solution nonetheless.

He visualised his usual Apparition point in the southern part of Tasmania and turned on the spot. The sheer distance, as usual, made him dizzy nearly to the point of passing out. He rested there, on the outskirts of a small Muggle town, with his head between his knees, breathing deeply and regaining his equilibrium. He counted himself lucky, really, that he'd never splinched himself. As it was, it felt like he'd been squeezed through an opening the size of a needle eye and then been stretched back out to normal size all in the half a second between Disapparating and Apparating.

Once Neville thought he could stand up before ending up straight back on his backside, he Apparated once more. This time his destination was a much shorter distance away to the Australian government building in Canberra. The Muggles all walked through the hallway without giving it a glance, as if stencilled lettering proclaiming 'Department of Magic' was quite ordinary in their world. Then again, even _without_ the Muggle-repelling charms, they might not have noticed the Department anyway, considering how tiny it was.

The only reason Neville himself knew where to find it was that he’d first arrived from Britain via the local International Floo Station just beyond that door. He didn't have fond memories of it. Not in the slightest

Though the tiny foyer inside the department was fairly packed, a man wearing a skin-tight neck-to-knee bathing suit and dripping on the tiled floor apparently stood out from the crowd. Just as well, really, since he was in something of a hurry. A security wizard appeared fairly quickly in front of him – obviously he looked a little deranged or dangerous, or perhaps both.

"I've just popped in from Antarctica, do you have a moment?" wasn't exactly the best start to a conversation when he needed to be considered sane so they would help him, but he couldn't really see much of a way around it. He quickly explained his predicament. Though the wizard didn't seem to completely believe him (despite the fact that he was quite obviously fresh out of the ocean wearing skin-tight apparel), he nonetheless delivered Neville to the resident Obliviator.

Even after living in a place where he might very well be the only person for miles and miles, the fact that the Ministry of Magic of a whole region could survive with just one Obliviator on staff was still something of an eye-opener. The magical community always seemed a lot larger when you were actually within it, Neville thought, but it quickly became obvious how heavily they were outnumbered when he looked at the small number of witches and wizards living somewhere like Australia, where the population was admittedly fairly minimal to begin with. It was no wonder the Ministry back home suddenly seemed more afraid of discovery by the Muggles than ever before.

"I'm performing herbology research in Antarctica," Neville quickly explained. "On oceanic species of plants. A Muggle found me coming out of the water without any of their life support equipment. He was foreign – Italian I think – so I couldn't question him to find out exactly what he'd seen. I Stunned him and Apparated him back into my tent and then Apparated here."

The Obliviator was apparently accustomed to hearing the weird and wonderful in his work, for he took Neville's story in stride without even blinking. In fact, all he asked in response were the co-ordinates of the tent and the location at which Neville had run into the Italian man in the first place. This was lucky, since that was about all the assistance Neville felt qualified to give. Then the man disappeared out the door and Neville didn’t see him again.

That, unfortunately, didn’t signal that Neville was to be let off the proverbial hook. The Obliviator had obviously advised someone from another area of the department of the situation. A stern-looking young witch joined him in the office only a few minutes later.

Neville quickly discovered that conversations that began with, "Please state your full name and nationality," were unlikely to be particularly pleasant, regardless of how fakely polite the witch in question tried to be. He was detained for over two hours while the witch asked him what felt like the same questions rephrased to establish the simple fact that he was a British wizard who'd been seen performing magic by an Italian ( _probably_ Italian, he kept having to correct her) Muggle. By the time he was released, just the prospect of Apparating back to his tent a whole continent away was exhausting. Luckily, by the time he arrived back there, his tent – and more specifically, his bed – was blessedly empty of unconscious strangers. He felt rather like someone who had woken up from a one-night stand ready to flee only to find that the other person had thankfully already acted on a similar impulse. Not that anything like that had actually ever happened to Neville. The papers wouldn't have let him live it down for years.

Still, as he collapsed onto the lumpy mattress and went out like a _Lumos_ within the minute, Neville spared a thought to muse that it wouldn't be long until he could return back to England and potentially have sex for the first time in over a year. Not-completely-satisfying one-nighter or otherwise, he didn't think that he'd ever looked forward to anything more since those last days of praying the war would end.

* * *

The Ministry witch he'd dealt with in Australia had officially cautioned him, stating that an official foreign affairs investigation may be required if he was brought to their notice for violating the International Statute of Secrecy again. It was, therefore, justified alarm that caused Neville to trip over… well, over a completely flat bit of floor, to be honest, when he heard a voice outside his tent one evening just a few days after the previous incident.

It really would be terrible luck if he was discovered by Muggles twice in one week. There were only a few hundred people at most on the whole continent at any given time. In fact, he considered, it would be just _Neville's_ luck.

He unzipped the tent and peered out. Neville's vague hopes that it might be wizards doing a follow-up report were extinguished when he caught sight of the bright yellow Muggle parka. However, the man did not stare incredulously past Neville at how the inside of the tent didn't match the outside, or remark on the warmth escaping from a tent that clearly wasn't naturally insulated. In fact, he looked remarkably poised, as if he wasn't at all out of place standing just outside another man's tent in the middle of an icy desert.

"Mr Longbottom," he greeted almost cordially.

Neville, taken aback, stooped slightly so that he could see under the low-drawn hood. He could just make out the face and a few strands of red hair in the twilight.

"Percy?"

Neville had never known until that moment that a person could _ruffle_ in something as bulky as a parka. Percy not only managed it, but did it _importantly_.

Neville had to hold back a snicker at the idea – let alone the _sight_ – of Percy fighting doggedly against the immensity of his outfit in order to cross his arms across his chest.

"That's ‘Mr Weasley’ to you, thank you Longbottom. I'm here on Ministry of Magic official business, so I'd appreciate some respect."

He pushed his way into the tent without so much as brushing against Neville, which was something of an accomplishment in his get-up.

"Why are you wearing that?" Neville asked with a slightly nervous grin. "A simple warming charm would work much better."

Percy glared over the top of his glasses, which were spotted with tiny flecks of snow. "Some of us, Mr Longbottom, are actually conscious of the existence of the _International Statute of Secrecy_. I'd hoped your recent experience would have taught you the importance of not flaunting magic about in front of Muggles."

Miles away from the nearest base and camped alongside a glacier that Muggles didn't class as safe to travel near wasn't precisely 'in front of Muggles', as far as Neville was concerned, but he wasn't sure he should push his luck by pointing that out. Percy seemed irate enough as it was.

Neville wondered if this was what it felt like to be five years old and being scolded for touching his father's wand. Though he had no real frame of reference (his Gran having always been about as far from exasperatedly patronising as possible), he could still recognise that he felt only three feet tall.

"I am here, as I've said, on official business. On Thursday evening at forty-seven past ten, the Ministry of Magic received intelligence that you had interacted with foreign magical governments regarding a breach of the _International Statute of Secrecy_. Due to your present isolation and lack of basic magical means of communication, the Ministry allowed you until Monday morning at nine-o'clock to contact us with an explanation for your conduct, as required by section 54, subsection 2, of the _Magical Incident International Co-operation Act_."

"The what now?"

"The _Magical Incident International Co-operation Act_ , of course."

"I've never heard of it. How could I be expected to have known what paragraph whatsis of it said?"

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse, Mr Longbottom."

"Really, Percy, you can just call me Neville."

Percy's glare increased in intensity. "This isn't precisely a social call. I'm here on official business."

So he'd said. Repeatedly. Neville stifled a frustrated groan.

"I've been sent to conduct your initial interview to consider whether further action should be taken with regard to your actions."

Neville frowned. "What?"

Percy sighed long-sufferingly and shot a patronising sort of smile in Neville's direction. Neville ignored the impulse to point out that he was barely four years Percy's junior.

"You broke the law, Mr Longbottom. You may have believed until now that your status as a war hero placed you above the legal institutions that the rest of us have to abide by, but criminal activity is a serious matter regardless of how famous you are."

"Cr-Criminal?" Neville stammered. "But it was an accident."

"That will be for the Ministry to decide, should they elect to follow up on it."

"But they shouldn't. Of course they shouldn't. I've already been given a warning by the Australian Ministry, or Department of Magic, or whatever they call it there. I would’ve thought that’d be enough, especially since I wasn't even anywhere near Britain at the time."

"You are a British citizen, and a member of the wizarding community," Percy informed him officiously. "You therefore fall under the jurisdiction of the British Ministry of Magic, as per the _Wizengamot Procedure Rules_ , Order 4 Clause 1."

"But –"

"The Ministry is thereby entitled to question you with respect to any activities you are involved in which attract the attention of Muggles."

"But –"

"If you refuse to answer the questions put to you, I will be forced to escort you back to London, where you may be formally questioned with the use of Veritaserum."

Neville huffed quietly and gave up on getting a word in edgewise. Instead, he tiredly gestured toward the lone chair in the room. Percy took one look at the tattered state of it and conjured his own chair with a flick of his wand. He shrugged off – or, more accurately, vigorously wrestled with and shook off – his parka. Then he parked himself in the chair, lazing back as if he was there on a social call at Neville's invitation rather than there for 'official business'.

Neville took in the armchair jealously, regretting his limited talents in household Charms and Transfigurations certainly not for the first time since setting up his current living arrangements. His chair, Neville decided as he sat down on it, wasn't even half as comfortable as Percy's looked. And it smelled strange, even in comparison with the rest of the tent.

Neville suspected by the satisfied look on Percy's face that it had been his intention that Neville be uncomfortable for this 'interview'. Neville allowed himself a small hint of a scowl, though he doubted Percy would pick up on it.

Things only went downhill from there, though. It was much in the vein of his questioning with the witch from the Australian Ministry, except that Percy didn't even pretend to make an effort to be civil. Neville put up with it without complaint other than the occasional near-soundless sigh. It was, after all, _Percy_. Prefect. Head Boy. Something about him always made Neville feel like he was once more that first year boy who constantly forgot the password and had to get his House Prefect to let him into his dormitory. As such, to question Percy's authority beyond a half-hearted attempt to get him to explain himself seemed almost sacrilegious to Neville. Conditioning was hard to break that way.

Still, even if he didn't show it, that didn't mean that Neville didn't feel fairly disgruntled with the way Percy was barking questions at him and barely seeming to listen to Neville's answers. He was only too glad to see the back of Percy as he struggled to pull his parka on once more – a back that looked at least three times slimmer without it on, Neville noted, though Percy was by no means unhealthily skinny like his brother Ron.

"The Ministry will contact you regarding their decision based on this interview."

Then Percy stepped outside the tent and Apparated.

Neville's jaw dropped. What had all that about wearing Muggle clothes to blend in been about if he was just going to go and _Apparate_ out in the open?

He wondered if anyone had ever really understood Percy Weasley.

* * *

True to Percy's word, it wasn't long before Neville was awoken by the scratching of an owl on the outer canvas material of the old tent.

When Neville opened the flap, he found a snowy owl that was almost invisible against the endless white of the ground in front of the tent. The owl's beak looked posed to tap once more against the tent material. Even though, if Neville remembered correctly, snowy owls were adapted to live in a similar sort of climate, the owl still seemed to shoot him a very put-out look at having been left outside in the cold standing in the packed snow for so long.

The owl spread its wings and flew through the opening into the warm tent. Neville shut the tent up once more. He followed the bird deeper inside his tent to where it had perched on the chair pulled up to the small card table.

Neville turned the letter over in his hand and broke the Ministry of Magic seal that he'd known he would find there. He hastily unfolded the letter and read it.

 _Mr Longbottom,_

 _As you were earlier made aware by a Ministry representative visit, the Department of International Magic Co-operation within the British Ministry of Magic received intelligence that a number of charms on both your person and your belongings were performed at various times in close proximity to members of the non-magical community (Muggles). You further failed to inform that Department when you were discovered by a Muggle, as was your legal duty under the_ Magical Incident International Co-operation Act _. In response to the initial interview, the matter has been passed on to the Improper Use of Magic Office, which has decided to hold a further inquiry into the events previously mentioned._

 _We feel we must remind you that as a British citizen, you are answerable to the British Ministry of Magic despite your temporary absence from the country. Therefore, as a result of your violation of Section 13 of the_ International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy _, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at the Ministry of Magic at 11 a.m. on the thirteenth of May to determine whether any disciplinary action should be taken. Should you have difficulty returning to the country for this date, please send a reply via the delivery owl requesting an extension and stating a valid reason (in accordance with section 56, subsections (a) through (k) of the_ International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy _) for the delay._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Percy Ignatius Weasley_

 _Improper Use of Magic Office_

 _Ministry of Magic_

Neville thought it might be somewhat unjust that Percy had apparently been both the interviewer making the recommendation to pursue the case and part of the Department that made the decision based on that recommendation. But then again, as Percy had made so clear, Neville really didn't know much about the law in any capacity, let alone the law as it related to the inner runnings of the Ministry of Magic.

It was also fairly obvious that the Ministry's expectations about the ordinary witch's or wizard's legal knowledge was unreasonable. For example, the Ministry clearly thought that the Statute of Secrecy should have been one of those items he shouldn't leave home without, even when his destination was an icy desert at the bottom of the world. That, or they expected every witch and wizard to have memorised the thing. Either way, Neville had no idea what the reasons for delay contained in section whatever, sub-sections who-gives-a-flying-broomstick's-end could possibly be. As the Ministry no doubt intended, Neville thought with a shadow of a scowl. As _Percy_ had probably intended, more the point.

He didn't know whether it was the quoting of specific sub-sections or the perfect penmanship or even just the fact that he knew that the letter's author was Percy Weasley, but for some reason Neville couldn't help but read rather more affectation than was probably necessary into the letter.

Maybe it was even because the owl that had delivered the letter reminded him strongly of Percy Weasley. It was eyeing him almost suspiciously, as if it knew the contents of the letter and thought him a trouble-maker of the worst kind. Neville could just imagine Percy giving him that exact same look over the rims of his glasses.

He wondered whether having Percy on the brain enough to see elements of him in innocent animals was a sign of insanity. It certainly felt that way.

"No reply," Neville immediately told the owl.

The owl finished picking away at the scraps of dinner from the previous night that Neville had yet to dispose of – the fumes of day-old cold sausage leftovers and tea dregs still smelled a hundred times better than the tent would otherwise, after all. The owl then flew to the closed flap of the tent and squawked pointedly, clearly eager to be off. Neville wondered whether the tent smelled as bad to the owl as it did to him. Could owls even smell?

Neville let the bird out and watched it disappear, quickly blending almost seamlessly into the glaring white of the snow in the early morning light. He imagined he'd be following that bird soon enough, disappearing as if he'd never been camped out there in the first place.

To tell the truth, he wasn't exactly sad to be leaving his self-imposed isolation. Once he finished the Ross Sea portion of his research, which shouldn't take more than about two weeks now that Neville could be sure that the Italian base where he'd had his Muggle run-in was definitely vacated, there was very little to keep him there. He had planned to complete his written reports on his research before returning to Britain so that he could present his findings to the Ministry almost upon arrival (preferably before the newspapers got wind of his return and twisted his intentions regarding his research proposal well out of proportion). However, he knew he would have been only putting off the inevitable. He'd been living in the middle of nowhere for too long. Besides, his writing time would be better spent in the comfort of a real room. Or anywhere other than the dreaded tent of the unidentifiable smells, really.

So it was probably just as well he now had a deadline. Though he couldn't rightly say he was eager to go before the Ministry just now. He especially wasn't looking forward to the possibility of having Percy Weasley once more looking down on him as if he wanted to squash Neville like an insignificant bug.

* * *

Neville tried not to let the officials who checked him through security in the International Floo Station in Australia see how green he looked at the prospect of his journey home. Sad to say, the long-distance Apparation was a walk in the park compared to travelling literally halfway across the planet by Floo.

Things would be so much easier if only the Ministry hadn't abolished international Portkeys as a security provision during the height of the war. He had rather hoped that would be one of the very first of the arbitrary laws his friends who had gone to work at the Ministry would see repealed. That had been before he'd realised that none of the laws were being repealed at all; rather, the Ministry had just added new restrictions to the existing laws. Neville wasn't particularly happy with the idea that the Ministry's policies were even more constraining now than they had been even at the very worst times of the Death Eater’s reign, but there was little he could do about it.

Neville eventually stumbled out of an enormous fireplace in a sectioned-off area of the British Ministry of Magic. One look at him had the wizard waiting to search him for dangerous magical items or hexes on his person scrambling to thrust one of the many sick bags sitting at the ready into his hands.

Neville was very glad that the bags were designed to be self-cleaning. He was doubly glad for quick and easy mouth-washing spells, the importance of which his Gran had drilled into him over the years once she'd discovered just how hopelessly Floo-sick he'd been as a kid (and, sadly, still was).

The security wizard kept his distance for a long while, looking at Neville like he was a volatile wand just waiting to explode. He eventually apparently decided that Neville was done being sick and was therefore safe to approached. He gestured for Neville to display his luggage.

After over an hour of explaining, or trying to explain, just why Neville was bringing foreign plants into the country, he was allowed into the Ministry proper, feeling quite a bit better apart from the pain in his elbows (which were particularly battered because, as usual, he'd forgotten to properly tuck them into himself during his Floo journey). He didn't pause to acknowledge some of the familiar faces bustling through the Atrium to either Floo or Apparate home for the night, even though some of them started at the sight of him. He certainly didn't slow down when he caught sight of a flash of ginger hair; he didn't really feel like talking to anyone who even reminded him of Percy Weasley in his current state. With his luck it would probably be the man himself.

Though the walk from the nearest Apparition point outside the wards of his Gran's house and the house itself wasn't particularly far, it was nonetheless several minutes after he Apparated before he hit the thick brass knocker against the door. He was glad that no one seemed to be around to witness him awkwardly approaching the door and raising his hand to announce himself only to swivel around and retreat down the pathway. Repeatedly.

When the door opened, Neville wasn't greeted with open arms or even by a less overt indication that he was welcome. Instead his Gran stared almost blankly at him. He just stared back at her, trying not to show fear by blinking or averting his eyes. After a while she raised her eyebrows at him and shuffled to one side of the door frame so that he could squeeze past her to go inside.

"Didn't I tell you that you'd only end up right back here where you started?" she asked as soon as she'd closed the door after him. "I told you that you should have applied for a proper job at the Ministry."

"Yes Gran," Neville replied quietly.

She _had_ told him exactly that, of course. Several times. Somehow it was irrelevant that she’d then spent the very next breath deriding the efforts of those in the Ministry to restructure it for the better after the war.

That had been nearly two years ago. Surely it should count for something that he'd successfully supported himself over that time and was well on his way now to fulfilling his goals?

But then, she had something to say on that count, too. She always did.

"And now you've gone and spent all of your parents' money on that wild goose chase of yours as well."

There had been a moment at the conclusion of the war, and even for a few weeks after He Who Must Not Be Named had been defeated, when his Gran had seemed to be almost unconditionally proud of Neville. It was something that Neville had been seeking his whole life. It had opened his eyes somewhat that it had taken standing up to the most evil wizard in living memory and helping to defeat him to bring that pride about. Apparently, though, Neville had not really learned his lesson when he'd seen how easily she went back to always wanting more, more, more from him. There he was again, and her disappointment still cut as deep as ever.

"I just came to see you, Gran," Neville said, fidgeting despite his best efforts. "I haven't seen you in nearly two years, remember? I'm not back here to stay, not really."

She frowned. "You're going to spend even more money just so you don't have to stay here?"

Make up your mind, he thought. The possibility of saying it aloud barely even registered.

"I have enough money to support myself," Neville lied. "And it's not anything to do with not being _here_. It's just that I've lived on my own for three years. I can't go back to living with someone straight away after that."

"You'll never get married with that attitude."

Of course not. He'd never get married at all, if his Gran was any authority on the matter. Just like he'd never managed to get a proper job, and he'd never taken the right subjects at Hogwarts, and he'd never received the right grades in those that he did take, and he'd never been friends with the right people.

Neville loved his Gran. He really did. And he was sure that she loved him too, in her own way. The problem was that she looked at him and couldn't quite see 'Neville' beyond her initial reaction of 'not-Frank'. He would never just be himself to her, and so she couldn’t quite accept him as he was. He supposed that it pushed him to aim high, and that obviously wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes…

Sometimes he wished he could have a normal family. Sometimes he even wondered if it would be better to have no family at all.

But, for better or worse, his Gran had taught him that family was the most important thing there was. So he kept trying, and probably always would. If that meant telling his Gran about his dreams and ambitions and how he'd spent the last years over slightly too bitter tea while she occasionally interjected insinuations that this or that was substandard as if she couldn't quite help herself, so be it.

* * *

The Leaky Cauldron had seemed like as good a place as any to stay while he finished writing up his official research report for the Ministry and then looked for more permanent lodgings. After all, the Leaky Cauldron was cheap, for it was also old and dusty and not always entirely sure in its construction. It was about all he could afford, in fact, until he either found a stable job or was finally reimbursed by the Ministry for the money (his inheritance, as his Gran felt obligated to point out repeatedly) that he'd spent to fund his research.

However, Neville hadn't taken into account that in addition to being cheap, the Leaky Cauldron was also _busy_. He didn't really feel like talking to anyone at that moment, suffering as he was from a mixture Floo-lag and post-visit-with-Gran frustration. It was unfortunate that wading through a sea of witches and wizards and other magical beings (some of which Neville couldn't really identify on sight) without being seen was easier said than done. This was particularly the case, it would seem, when his face happened to be plastered across the front page of the _Evening Prophet_ that a good portion of the patrons were reading.

"Neville Longbottom," greeted a wizard Neville was certain he'd never seen before in his life.

"Way to stick it to 'em, Nev!" said another wizard. Neville thought he might have been a seventh year Hufflepuff in Neville's first year. They'd never exchanged a word.

"Shame on yeh," said a particularly misshapen-looking woman – a hag? "The Ministry don't need yeh causin' more trouble'n yer worth."

Who on earth was she to tell him he was troublesome? For that matter, who on earth was she just in _general_?

"Can I borrow this?" Neville asked a man who was staring at him wordlessly. He took the newspaper that had been dangling uselessly from the man's fingertips into his own hands and flicked to the front page where he'd caught sight of a photograph of himself (and a terrible one, at that).

"Oh _hell_ ," he breathed when he'd read a few lines in. This seemed to further outrage the hag. Neville tossed the paper back to its rightful owner and retreated to the room he'd booked upstairs, unwilling to bother dealing with the masses any longer just so he could finish reading that article.

He wasn't sure he wanted to read the whole thing through, anyway. Just the quote 'The Ministry of Magic wishes to censure Mr Longbottom's actions and to remind the general public not to follow his reckless abandonment of the law' – said by none other than Percy Weasley, of course – was enough to put him off ever reading the Daily Prophet again, to be honest.

However, when he surfaced from his room the next morning at an unreasonably late hour, still feeling groggy, he picked up a copy of the paper without thinking about it. Unfortunately, that meant that he got another chance to read the contents of the article in their even more extended form.

"Merlin," Neville sighed as he picked up an abandoned copy of the _Daily Prophet_ from the counter. Phrases such as 'Muggle abuse', 'international scandal' and 'criminal flouting of the law' pretty much summed up the main points in the article, though the lies and exaggerations did extend well beyond that. He wondered whether the paper had waited until his return – whether this was the first article of its kind – or whether the _Prophet_ had been bad-mouthing him since the incident itself.

Either way, Neville wasn't feeling very impressed about it. Enough was enough, really.

Neville wasn't exactly new to having to cope with his every action being followed by the papers. The problem was that he'd never been so great at the actual _coping_ part. After a life of being more or less unintentionally ignored by people on the whole, Neville wasn't used to the spotlight that came along with suddenly being deemed a 'war hero'. In fact, he'd been so terrible at coping that he'd retreated to the Muggle world. Then, when he'd returned to find the attention worse than ever in the wake of his unexplained disappearance and then sudden reappearance, he’d left the country altogether. It hadn't been a coincidence that he'd ended up doing his research in what had to be the least populated place on earth.

But even though he'd experienced the downfalls of returning to the wizarding world after a long absence once before, he'd thought that by now enough time would have passed that they would have forgotten about him. He certainly hadn't expected _this_.

"The stories were worse a few weeks ago, when it all happened," Tom said from behind the counter.

Neville glanced up. "Worse?"

Tom nodded. "Worse. They're just recapping their other stories now that you've come back. They've probably got nothing better to write about."

"Right," Neville said. He noted that his voice was completely calm. Deceptively so, in fact. He was anything but calm right then.

Enough was _enough_.

* * *

Neville stepped out of the elevator when the magical voice announced the 'Department of Magical Law Enforcement'. He averted his eyes whenever he saw someone who seemed to recognise him and tried his best to hide the badge that proclaimed that he was 'Neville Longbottom – Applicant for Legal Redress'. He'd tried to unpin it when he'd first seen people reading it with interest, but it seemed to have been magically fused to his shirt when he'd put it on without thinking. He hoped it would at least come off when he left the Ministry. He liked that shirt.

Of course, the fact that he was avoiding talking to anyone he didn't _have_ to talk to made it difficult to find his destination. Eventually he asked a harmless looking witch, who gestured at a desk across the room. Her eyes slid down to his name badge and Neville retreated as quickly as could be considered polite. A pile of books taller than Neville himself both marked the right desk and obscured whether anyone was actually sitting on the other side.

Luckily, the owner of the desk was present, so he didn't have to wait around for hours like he had during his past visits at the Ministry. Neville was a little less fortunate, though, in the identity of the person.

"Percy!" Neville said, stunned. "You're in the legal department now? Weren't you a part of the Department of International Magical Co-operation just a few weeks ago? And then the Improper Use of Magic Office? Not that this isn't a good change for you, what with your obviously extensive knowledge of the law."

Neville could actually see Percy stiffen up as he spoke.

"I've told you, it's 'Mr Weasley', and I'll thank you to remember it. And my employment is none of your business. You're here on official business, I assume?"

"Er, yes. I want to make a complaint against the _Daily Prophet_ for libel."

Percy leaned back in his chair (which _still_ looked a lot more comfortable than Neville's best chair, damn him, even now that Neville was back in relative civilisation in the Leaky Cauldron and Percy was stuck with budget Ministry furniture).

"Libel?" Percy repeated. "I hope you realise that that's a very serious claim."

"I know," Neville said. "That's why I didn't make it in the past, though I don't doubt I had a right to, with the rubbish they've been printing about me ever since the war. But now I really want it to stop."

Percy took up a quill and began writing something – it could have been 'Neville Longbottom is a whiny git' over and over for all that Neville could make it out from that distance – on a slightly battered looking piece of parchment.

"You realise that you actually have to disprove the truth of what the paper says to make out libel?" Percy said as he wrote, not looking up.

"Yes," Neville said.

"I've read those articles. Are you sure you can prove they're wrong?"

"One of the articles implied that I bodily dragged an unconscious Muggle to a cave and had my way with him!" Neville exclaimed. Several people looked in his direction, frowning. Neville ducked his head in embarrassment and lowered his voice. "You're not seriously suggesting that you believe that, are you, Percy?"

Percy merely stared at him sullenly. The silence continued for a long time before Neville realised that Percy really wasn't going to help him. Hell, Percy didn't seem likely to even _speak_ to him again any time soon unless Neville actually forced his hand.

"Perhaps you merely misread what was written. You did say it was only _implied_ , after all. Perhaps you overreacted to the more obvious implication as to your… preferences. They have been the topic of speculation before, after all."

Neville frowned. "I don't care who the _Prophet_ says I'm having sex with. That’s not the point."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Then perhaps you're in the wrong department. There's no point in litigating for defamation if the things being said don't bother you."

"But... that's not what I… well…"

Neville threw his hands up in the air and left, not much caring that the whole Department of Magical Law Enforcement probably thought he was having some kind of a hissy fit. Anyone who thought the worse of him for his obvious frustration had clearly never been out-debated – or rather, thoroughly _trounced_ in argument – by Percy Weasley. He was infuriating. He was so… so _proper_. And even after the war, the Ministry and its lackeys could, in Percy's eyes, still apparently do no wrong. At least, not now that Death Eaters weren’t running the whole place, Neville presumed.

Who cared what anyone in the Ministry thought, really? Obviously it hadn't changed since before the war quite as much as the press would like people to believe.

Neville wished that he'd overcome his timidness enough to say that out loud. And right to Percy Weasley's face, preferably.

* * *

When Neville appeared at the Ministry again two days later for his 'hearing', he decided that if the Ministry had changed at all, it had certainly not been for the better.

He entered the room expecting to spend a few dull hours being asked questions – he was, sadly, getting used to that – before receiving a warning or maybe a slap on the wrist (probably literally, if the look of the main interrogator was any indication). He left the room feeling absolutely numb and barely able to remember what had happened after the questioning had begun.

It was only later, locked in an Azkaban cell, that he even recalled being sentenced there. To be fair (though not _very_ fair), the sentence handed down had actually been a fine. However, it had been a small fortune that Neville could barely have afforded even _before_ using all the money he'd inherited from his parents to pursue his research. Being as destitute as he was at that point, he hadn't a chance. The default of the fine had been twenty days in Azkaban. Neville was glad for the first time that there were no longer any Dementors wandering the halls. Even twenty days under those circumstances would have felt like a lifetime.

As it was, Neville was still inordinately pleased when he was released after just three days. Dementors or no Dementors, the wizarding world didn't seem to have any concept of prisoner's rights. He'd learned all about that sort of thing during his first short stint in the Muggle world (at the same time that he'd gained the knowledge of global warming that had provided the basis for his research, funnily enough). However, he didn't think that he'd given the idea the appreciation it deserved up until he'd become a prisoner himself.

He wondered how many of the prisoners of Azkaban who had died there before they had a chance to go mad did so just because they hadn't had enough to eat or drink, or because they’d fallen ill due to im properly maintained hygiene and a lack of heating. After all, Neville could imagine that the Dementors had been even poorer carers than the current guards.

Once he'd been pulled outside of the fortress, Harry Potter came into sight. Neville had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

"All right there, Neville?" Harry asked quietly.

"Never better," Neville croaked, his throat dry from three days of less than adequate hydration.

The ride back to the mainland was mainly spent in silence but for the sound of the water lapping at the side of the magically-propelled boat. Harry didn't seem to know what to say; saving a guy from prison after not having seen him or spoken to him in over a year made for some amount of awkwardness, obviously. Neville wasn't much better off in that department. What did you say to someone who you suddenly found yourself massively indebted to? Not for the first time, either.

"What did you do?" Neville finally asked. "To get me out, I mean."

Harry scowled. "It was all over the paper the next day. Luckily Hermione convinced me to keep up my subscription to that pile of scrap parchment, since that was the first I'd heard of it. I tried talking to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but then there's this no-tolerance policy, and he was… er, a bit unreasonable. He made sure to remind me that he's technically my boss about, oh, fifty or so times. Bastard.” Harry grimaced.

"In the end I had to pay your fine, but then it still took another day or so for them to agree to release you early. And it was another seven hours straight spent filling out paperwork before they actually got around to getting you out of there, and it was only _that_ speedy because I reminded them who exactly I was, which you know I hate doing. Gits. I had to watch over their shoulders the whole time to make sure they were actually doing their jobs, I swear."

Neville snorted. "Seems to be a common thing in Ministry employees."

Harry sighed tiredly. "Too right," he said, but didn't make any effort to elaborate. Neville wasn't really in the mood to push him. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know what had put that exhausted look in Harry's eyes, actually. He hadn't looked like that even during the final battle, which had been the absolute lowest point for most people.

Then again, it had probably helped that, unlike all Ministry-related positions, killing Voldemort hadn't come with piles of paperwork that could crush even the most resilient of spirits.

"And the worst of the bunch was Percy bloody Weasley," Harry said some minutes later, sounding as though he'd been letting his anger about the issue build up until it burst. "I mean, how hard is it to fill out _one_ piece of paper? He wasn't even a major part of the case. Just because he was the one who escorted you to Azkaban in the first place –"

"You're kidding!" Neville interjected. The whole thing was still a haze at that point. But then, now that Harry mentioned it, he sort of remembered disconnectedly saying the exact same thing when he'd seen Percy Weasley at the exit of the room, waiting to escort him out. Or rather, he was pretty sure that he'd quite vehemently said, "You're _fucking_ kidding," but that really wasn't the point.

He'd also said things like, "You know this is wrong, Percy, help me out here," and, "You questioned me first, you can tell them a warning would be enough," on the boat on the way over, when he'd recovered slightly from his near comatose state of stunned disbelief.

His words obviously hadn't helped him much, since all Percy had to say for himself was, "No tolerance means _no_ tolerance, Mr Longbottom, even for media celebrities."

Neville thought he had apparently blocked the whole thing out as some kind of self preservation. So that he didn't implode from his frustration with Percy, probably. Or maybe _explode_ , taking Percy along with him. In retrospect, Neville wasn't even surprised. Appealing to Percy Weasley's better nature seemed to be a wasted exercise. It wasn't correct _procedure_ , after all. It wasn't _official business_.

"Percy's a prick," Neville announced.

Harry glanced sidelong at him. He looked somewhat stunned that the word 'prick' was even part of Neville's vocabulary, let alone that he'd just used it to actually _insult_ someone. He also looked extremely uncomfortable, though Neville wasn't really sure why.

"Er, well, I didn't mean _that_ ," Harry said. "Percy's not actually the worst of them, not by far. He's just the worst when it comes to being _stubborn_. But he's not a prick. Not really. Not most of the time, anyway. Not considering everything. If I was in his shoes, I might be a bit of a git about it, too. Hell, there are those in the Ministry who would say I'm a git as it is."

Neville snorted. "Yeah. You're the git who goes about saving hopeless cases like me and trying to make the world a better place. How do you sleep at night?"

The slight smirk that had developed on Harry's face slipped away in an instant.

"Badly," he said.

They didn't talk again on the boat after that. In fact, they didn't speak a word until they were back at the Leaky Cauldron, where Harry followed Neville without question. Neville collapsed at the counter and ordered a firewhiskey, feeling thankful when Harry chipped in, "Leave the bottle." He was even happier still when Harry managed to draw all of the attention to himself just by being Harry Potter, leaving Neville to gulp back his alcohol in relative peace.

The bottle of firewhisky began to seem like less of a brilliant idea a little later, though. Neville noticed that Harry was knocking back more of it than was strictly healthy. He didn't dare point that out, though. He might have matured and grown a backbone toward the end of the war and since, but Neville still wasn't really a fan of confrontation, especially with people he thought of as his friends.

The upside of Harry becoming quickly inebriated, though, was that he was a talkative drunk.

"Paper's always on m'case, o'course," he was saying. "'Why haven't you married Ginny yet?' 'Why haven't you _dumped_ Ginny yet?' 'When do you think you'll be Head of the Aurorors?’ Ugh, geez, I mean the _Aurors_. What if I don't wanna be Head of the bloody Aurors? What then?"

Neville shrugged unhelpfully.

"At least I got 'em to write an apology t'you for writing rubbish. And the Ministry's apologising for locking you away as well."

"Great," Neville muttered. "More publicity."

"Wossat?” Harry asked, frowning, before launching back into his diatribe. “Better be a right good apology, 'sall I'm saying. Bloody Ministry think they can 'make an example' of you just 'cause you're all famous and stuff. Lotta good it is being a war hero, eh?"

"Yeah," Neville agreed. He snorted. In light of that consideration, he couldn't believe he hadn't seen Azkaban coming a mile away. Of course the Ministry would attempt to make an example of him, considering how high-profile the whole thing had been. He didn't know a whole lot about the 'no tolerance' policy both Harry and Percy had mentioned, but he could imagine that they had even less than no tolerance for breaking the law when it came to celebrities, even if they were unwillingly famous like him and Harry.

Unfortunately, that was about the last useful information he got out of Harry, as he seemed to have finally gone over his limit. Even more unfortunately, Harry's address was among the important information that he couldn't seem to draw out of Harry no matter how hard he tried.

"Looks like you're crashing with me," Neville said breathlessly as he bodily dragged Harry up the stairs, his wand well and truly forgotten at least five shots ago.

* * *

"Woah."

The surprised exclamation coupled with the feeling of someone unwinding themselves from his limbs woke Neville up. He opened his eyes to catch Harry finally fully extricating himself.

Harry, seeing that Neville was watching him, abruptly seemed to look even more uncomfortable.

"Okay, the clothes seem like a promising sign, at least, but… well, nothing happened last night, right?"

Neville laughed bitterly. "Like you were in any state for it,” he said. “You practically passed out on me after I hauled you up here, and you told me some interesting stories before that, but that's about it."

Harry nodded slowly and then winced as if just that small motion hurt. With the amount of firewhisky he'd downed, Neville wasn't surprised.

"Good. Good," Harry said. He sighed. "It wouldn't have been the first time I went on a bender and did something I regretted." His eyes went wide. "Not that I'd, you know, really _regret_ … you're not a bad sort… if I was going to, with anyone … oh god, kill me now, before I have to do it myself out of sheer embarassment. And pain. Oh, my head hurts."

Harry collapsed back onto the bed, looking even more mortified than Neville felt just then. Which was really saying something.

"I'm with Ginny." Harry's voice was muffled behind the hand that was thrown across his face in embarrassment, but Neville could just make out the words. "That's all I meant. I wouldn't want to with anyone else because I wouldn't want to cheat on her. Again."

That was probably more than Neville had ever wanted to know about Harry's sex life, to be honest. Well, maybe once upon a time… but not now, and certainly not with Ginny in the picture. Neville felt like he had a sudden insight – an insight he’d never expected or wanted – into why Harry refused to tell the papers the reason why he and Ginny hadn't married yet.

Harry sat up slightly and looked more serious, though still more red than usual. "You understand that I didn't mean anything by all that, right? That I don't have a problem with, you know, guys together."

Neville tried not to stiffen. "The thought didn't even occur to me," he lied. In truth, it always occurred to him these days, because he'd caught so much flak about the rumours that had surfaced just after his Hogwarts days.

Harry's eyes narrowed slightly. "I really don't have a problem,” he insisted. “Really."

Neville sighed. "That stuff in the paper about me ravishing some unsuspected Muggle against his will in Antarctica was rubbish, if that's what you're worried about."

"And the rumours about the less unsuspecting Muggle before that?" Harry asked, seeming markedly more sober than he had upon just waking. "The plant guy. Owned a nursery, or something. Was that rubbish? No, wait, you don't have to tell me. I totally get not wanting people always in your business."

Neville considered not answering, but then decided to screw caution to hell and back. If people were going to know every detail of his life against his will, they might as well know the _truth_. It was generally less embarrassing than the rumours anyway.

"Don't worry about it. You're not just _people_ , are you? You're right, the rumours were true for once that time."

Harry smirked a little. "Thought as much. So, as I said, no problem here."

Neville nodded grudgingly in acceptance. He'd probably appreciate Harry's disclosure a lot more when they'd both rid themselves of their hangovers (though Neville's was thankfully a lot less apparent than Harry's) and had a shower. And stopped lying barely a foot away from each other in the same bed. And stopped both being secretly mortified about the whole topic.

"I wish everyone was as accommodating," Neville said finally. "I have to present my research from the last year and a half to the Ministry soon, and the chances that they'll so much as listen to my opening sentence, let alone the rest of it, seem to be getting smaller by the second."

Harry cringed. "Yeah, good luck with that. The Ministry's not really of a mind to listen to anyone who isn't a part of it at the moment. And even then, most of the people who _are_ a part of it don't get much of a say either. One of the many problems of politics, or so Hermione tells me."

"I'm not going to let that stop me, though," Neville said bravely. "I'll make them listen."

Harry gave him a slow smile – a genuine smile, not a smirk or a tired twist of the lips like every other smile he'd seen on Harry’s face over the last day or so.

"The Ministry isn't going to know what hit it," Harry said.

Neville hoped not. He'd rather like to shock them. He'd like to shock the whole Wizarding World, come to that. Someone obviously needed to.

Of course, when he and Harry headed downstairs for breakfast and the whole of the Leaky Cauldron burst into excited muttering at the sight of them together still wearing last night's clothing and looking very much like they'd just rolled out of bed, Neville remarked silently to himself that that wasn't exactly the type of shock he was going for.

* * *


	2. Part Two

PART TWO

Neville pulled out a quill, ink and some parchment – which was slightly tattered, but he'd find some of better-quality to copy his writing out onto once the draft was written and edited – and began to write.

 _There are over thirty species of magical plants native to the continent of Antarctica. A small number of them have been discovered by Muggles, though they typically fail to notice the magical qualities of the plants in question. A few plants are even able to camouflage themselves to look like their already discovered non-magical cousins; only wizards can tell the difference, and even then it requires a certain degree of mastery in the field of Herbology. Still more of the plants are almost intelligent in nature. They have adapted over time so that only humans with inherent magic can see them, similar to wizard-constructed areas such as Diagon Alley._

Neville reread what he'd just written and groaned. It read like a textbook. And a beginner's textbook, at that. He scrunched up the piece of parchment and tossed it at the wall of the room. It fell down the far side of a particularly messy desk, potentially never to be seen again. Good riddance, Neville thought.

There was no one else in the room to scold him for littering or for disrespecting Ministry property. But then, the complete lack of anyone paying attention to him was kind of the problem.

If he was going to show up uninvited every time Neville had business related to the Ministry, Neville wished that Percy Weasley could have shown up then. At least then Neville would have had something to occupy his attention while he waited (for two whole hours, now) for someone within the Department for the Control and Preservation of Magical Plants (other than the extremely nervous looking witch in the corner who seemed to be so new to her job that she didn't have a clue what she was doing) to actually acknowledge his presence.

Insisting that he'd had an appointment hadn't helped matters much, unfortunately. It was like trying to get in to see a Healer; two hours of waiting for two minutes of only being half-listened to.

He'd already asked to speak to the Head of Department, or even just a member of the committee who'd initially decided to turn down his proposal. He was on the verge of leaving the Department in favour of pestering the Minister of Magic himself, but Neville doubted that Minister Burnstein would be any more likely to give him the time of day. Neville had never even heard of the man before he'd arrived back in Britain, after all.

Neville had to wait yet another half an hour before someone emerged from one of the offices.

"You know, I'm not even all that surprised anymore," Neville muttered. He let his head fall into his hands in frustration.

He was apparently going to have to talk to Percy Weasley today after all. It was a lesson in ‘be careful what you wish for’, obviously.

"Mr Longbottom?" Percy enquired. "Still here, are you? We half-expected you'd have run off by now.

"I'm not leaving until someone talks to me," Neville insisted. "I assume that you work in this department now?"

Percy glared at him. "Yes. So I'm talking to you now, just like you wanted, and what I'm telling you is to go home. The committee's already met regarding your little personal research project. They're not interested."

"How can you not be interested? The purpose of this Department is to 'preserve' magical plants, isn't it?"

"Only those that we've actually been convinced require preserving."

Neville blinked stupidly. He opened his mouth to respond, but he could think of nothing to say. Even if he could have, he wasn't entirely sure he could have made his tongue, which suddenly seemed too large in his mouth, move to form the words.

Percy, noting that Neville was somewhat speechless, smiled condescendingly at him.

"Don't worry yourself too much, Longbottom," he said. "It's better this way. The Ministry's time and money are better spent funding the new 'zero tolerance' scheme. Don't you think that's more worthwhile than some Muggle problem that we shouldn't even be thinking about intervening in? Don't you care about the greater good?"

Something about his cavalier attitude – and perhaps also about the way he tossed in the phrase 'the greater good' – made Neville's fist clench involuntarily, though he found that he still couldn't put his mouth to use in contradicting Percy.

Percy nodded. "I'm glad we understand each other," he said as he continued on his path out the door.

A young witch who had just emerged and taken a spot at a desk in the corner graced him with a look of sympathy. Neville decided that that only made him feel all the more pathetic.

He was sick of being pathetic.

"You lot didn't even _consider_ my proposal. I didn't even submit a full written copy of my research, and I haven't ever been given a chance to make a proper oral presentation. How can you turn it down without even knowing what it is?" Neville called after Percy as he followed him out the door, letting the thick wood slam behind him.

Percy swivelled back around to raise his eyebrows at him. "Perhaps if you're that desperate for someone to believe your report, Mr Longbottom, you should submit it to the _Quibbler_ with all the other 'research' of its calibre."

Neville couldn't remember ever punching another person in his life, or even physically attacking them in any other way. For that matter, he could barely remember stalking across the room and winding his fist back to throw it at Percy, either. But he did remember hearing the bang as Percy's back hit the corridor wall.

Percy brought his hand up to his chin with a pained expression. Neville's knuckles throbbed in sympathy.

"No one's hit me since before I started at Hogwarts," Percy admitted, his voice several notches higher than usual. He looked somewhat dazed. Neville knew the feeling.

"I'm sorry," Neville said. Or rather, he tried to say that, but he found that his voice was somewhat muffled by the hard impact on his jawbone and the way his head jerked back. He thought he must be experiencing about the same amount of stunned confusion as Percy must have felt just moments ago.

Percy didn't look all that confused by then, though. He looked more wild than anything.

It wasn't a particularly hard punch. Percy probably had as little experience being on the giving end of physical violence as Neville, after all. But it still hurt, more than it perhaps should have.

"I was going to let it go," Percy said in a rush, no longer speaking with his usual level of pompousness. "It was more his fault than yours, after all, and I was willing to be the bigger man. I was trying to treat you as professionally as possible, but then you go and hit me, and it's just _not on_ , Longbottom. You don't get to treat my sister that way and then hit me as well, as if I've done or said anything worse than you deserve."

Neville shook his head disbelievingly. "You know, whatever Harry says, you're definitely mental."

He saw the punch coming this time and turned away so that it just barely caught him on the cheekbone rather than breaking his nose.

"What is your problem?" he exclaimed.

"Don't rub it in, Longbottom. Don't you go around talking about what Potter's been saying to you like you've a right to when you… and he…"

"Percy, seriously, untangle your knickers and speak sense."

"You slept with him!" Percy burst out. "You knew he was dating my sister – don't try to say you didn't, everyone knows about them – and you helped him cheat on her anyway."

Neville sighed and clenched his teeth together in exasperation. "I knew that rumour would get around. Merlin. I didn't sleep with Harry."

Percy glared over his glasses at him, and Neville had to stop himself from cowering under that 'Prefect' look that he'd been on the receiving end of countless times at Hogwarts.

"I don't believe it. Everyone _knows_ you're gay, and it's not as if he hasn't done it before. I gave him a chance, damn it. I didn't tell Ginny, I told him as long as he never did it again… he said he was drunk and couldn't even remember it… Bill or Charlie would have just killed him on the spot, but not me. I should have done something about it. I know that now. And now I'm done being logical about it. I'm done being _nice_ , Longbottom."

Ah. Well that explained why Harry was so uncomfortable about the topic of Percy, and why he insisted that Percy wasn't all bad. Though honestly, Neville almost laughed at the thought of Percy ever being actually 'nice'. The closest he would ever get would be acting ‘tolerable’.

"Er, I'm sorry if you caught him cheating or whatever before, but he told me himself that he would never let himself do that to Ginny again. All we did was talk. Okay, and get drunk. Mainly we got drunk. And then slept. And then had breakfast. But there was absolutely no cheating. Other than when we played Exploding Snap, that is, because Harry's…" And at that point Neville finally stopped his lips from moving and sounds from coming out without his permission. He thought the motivation to shut up may have come from the sight of Percy's face turning so red it looked practically purple (which was really quite an interesting look against his flaming hair).

Neville wanted to hit his head against something hard in that moment. Why could Percy always reduce him to a babbling second year with just one glare?

"Look, I may have _slept_ with Harry, technically, seeing as how I dumped his drunken arse in my bed and slept on the other side of it, but there was no sex. And I doubt even that much will ever happen again anyway because the conversation afterwards was topped in awkwardness only by this conversation right now. And I'm leaving now before I make even more of a fool of myself in the Ministry hallways where anyone could see. I'll probably see you around the _next_ time you randomly change jobs and I just happen to have to deal with you."

Neville started walking away, only to be stopped by Percy's voice once more.

"He _really_ didn't have sex with you?" Percy called out loudly.

The witch walking down the hall towards him gave him a knowing look. Neville sighed.

"No, he didn't," Neville replied, turning around. ”I know it probably won't make a difference to hear it since you're her brother and it’s what you do, but I don't think you have to be quite so overprotective of Ginny. Harry obviously loves her, and he'd never hurt her that way again."

As Neville left, he muttered to himself, "And now I think I may be too mortified to ever have sex with anyone again, let alone Harry, so it's all just as well, isn't it?"

* * *

Neville supposed it was also just as well that he and Percy had attacked each other. At least the memory of their argument and the throbbing both in his fist and his face overshadowed the memory of the Ministry throwing over a year of research out the window due to their own stubbornness and their blatant dislike of him personally.

He had sought to prove that while global warming might be a Muggle idea, with the way it was clearly progressing it would also affect magical flora. In this case, the capriciousness of the plants in question seemed likely to manifest itself in the plants dying off once the average temperature rose too high.

The Muggles had no idea. The Ministry of Magic apparently didn't care anymore than they had when they'd refused to fund his expedition in the first place, even though he now had evidence to back up his assertions.

"Five out of the thirty-two discovered species of magical plants in Antarctica will be extinct in a few short decades."

That had been how the report would have begun. He wondered whether they would have even bothered to listen _that_ far before turning him down, if he had been allowed in to see them in the first place.

Why had they even allowed him to make an appointment, if they had no intention of listening to him? Did they just want to see him suffer? He was starting to think that Percy did, at least.

Despite the Ministry's decision not to financially back him, and despite his Gran's running commentaries on how it was just another way he was disappointing her, this was the first time since the possibility of the area of research had occurred to him that Neville wondered whether he'd made a mistake. Whether he'd just completely wasted the last year and a half and all of his parents' money that he'd spent on his research.

His study had been in place for almost a continuous year and a half. A few choice spells had meant that, unlike the Muggles, he was barely slowed down by the harsh weather in the winter months. It had seemed like a lifetime since he'd visited civilisation – _any_ civilisation – for more than a day or two to restock his provisions. And now that he was back, he wasn't quite sure that he wanted to be.

If it weren't for the suspicion with which British wizards fleeing to other countries after the war were treated, Neville might have approached other Ministries. It was, after all, a global issue. However, he doubted that his reception in those places would be any warmer. With luck, the worst they would do would be to use his report as kindling. If he actually attempted to set foot inside their borders, though, he didn't doubt that he'd find himself nicely holed up inside one of their prisons.

Neville imagined for a moment being locked inside Numenguard. He shuddered. Azkaban had been bad enough. And he doubted that Harry would be able to save him again if he managed to land himself in prison, particularly if it was a foreign one.

Unfortunately, Neville had learned of the unwillingness of foreign wizards to associate with British citizens first-hand.

Self-directed and self-funded research in the middle of nowhere had obviously not been his first career preference. He'd wanted to become an apprentice within Britain at first. But then things in his personal life had simply spiralled out of control, thanks largely to the media attention from which he couldn't seem to escape. He'd retreated to the Muggle world, where he'd taken up a job in a Muggle nursery to meet the costs so that he didn't have to draw on his inheritance. When he'd returned to the wizarding world, he'd quickly realised that his short time away hadn't made the press move on so much as it had exponentially focused their attention on him in his absence. He'd tried to leave Britain, but apparently foreign masters of their fields weren't as accommodating to British potential apprentices as they once might have been.

There was a general prejudice against British wizards trying to flee to other European countries; they were generally suspected of being Death Eaters on the run. Neville had expected that much, but had tried to put his 'war hero' fame to good use for once in clearing himself of that charge. However, he hadn't expected that wizards from other countries seemed to be against sharing knowledge with British wizards in general. Neville wasn't sure whether that was because they feared another Voldemort – if that was the case, they clearly had very short memories, since Britain hardly had a patent on Dark wizards. The reason didn't really matter, though. The reality had been that Neville's dream of becoming a Herbology apprentice had been impossible.

The research in Antarctica had been something of a last-ditch effort to establish himself in the field in the hope that employment might later come from that.

He took Percy Weasley's advice, at least to a point. If the Ministry wouldn't listen to him, at least he could put the results of his research out into the public where someone else – someone the Ministry weren't so obviously prejudiced against – might take up the task of continuing his work.

Of course, he didn't publish it in the _Quibbler_ , whatever Percy might think of his writing abilities and his research. As much as he liked Luna, it wasn't exactly the most respected paper around. There had been a reason he'd snapped and hit Percy over that comment, after all.

When the _Journal of Potions and Herbology_ sent an owl back several days later, which was much sooner than he'd expected, and he supposed he probably owed _something_ good to his fame, at least. The letter informed him that two of his 'peers' had reviewed and affirmed the article and that it would run in the next issue.

Neville decided that if his fit of temper with Percy had the sort of repercussions he feared they might, he could now at least go back to Azkaban happily.

Okay, well, maybe not _happily_. He’d go kicking and screaming, thanks.

* * *

Several days after the incident, a photo showing Percy leaning against the wall with his fingers to his chin and Neville standing back clutching his fist in a pained sort of way featured on the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. The moving loop of the scene in the photograph didn't quite catch the punch itself, but what it did show was suggestive enough. Neville had no memory of the photo being taken. But then, of course, the whole hitting each other part of their confrontation had been little more than a blur to him anyway, in light of the fact that he'd had practically a whole conversation about _sex_ with Percy Weasley. In the middle of a Ministry hallway.

The most ironic thing of all, though, was that for once the _Prophet_ had printed an almost entirely truthful article about him, except that they hadn't mentioned Percy's own retaliation. Neville wished he could properly appreciate it.

Unfortunately, the fact that he was completely screwed seemed to have dampened his sense of humour.

'Zero tolerance', as Neville understood it, meant that even his momentary loss of temper and the following exchange of blows – which had, in fact been a two-way _exchange_ rather than a completely unprovoked attack on Percy which Percy had just taken in stride, and had barely damaged Percy at all anyway – might result in his imprisonment in Azkaban for a very long time.

Hell.

Well, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t sort of suspected it was coming.

When Neville wasn't immediately dragged off to Azkaban by the Aurors, he was somewhat confused, but he counted his blessings for every extra day of freedom he had. When two whole weeks had passed since The Punch, Neville started to suspect that perhaps Percy was keeping him on edge on purpose, waiting for the best time to strike. As a best case scenario, Neville thought that maybe, _possibly_ , Percy might have decided not to take advantage of the fact that the Wizengamot probably wouldn't believe Neville when he said Percy had hit him back because he was ashamed of himself. When Neville was still breathing free air when his article was published at about the three week mark, it occurred to Neville that Harry's assertions that Percy wasn't such a bad sort might actually have had some substance after all. Of course, when a letter arrived four weeks after it all happened, Neville decided that some sort of practical joke was being played on him.

He’d expected a summons from the Ministry to defend assault charges. Instead, he got this.

 _Mr Longbottom,_

 _It is my sad duty to inform you that Professor Pomona Sprout has resigned quite suddenly from the position as Herbology Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for health reasons. However, when she tendered her resignation she suggested that you might replace her, having heard that you've recently returned to the country. Having read your recent submission to the_ Journal of Potions and Herbology _I am inclined to agree with her assessment. As such, I would like to invite you to apply for the position of Herbology Professor and look forward to hearing from you no later than the 30th of June._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Minerva McGonagall_

 _Headmistress_

When the letter fell from Neville's fingers, he barely even noticed.

* * *

It was rather lucky that the wards around Hogwarts castle seemed almost to be intelligent in and of themselves. They may have simply stopped another man who approached the castle uninvited. Neville, though, was not only allowed to proceed, but was also promptly met in the Entrance Hall, for the wards had obviously alerted the Headmistress to his presence. Filch didn't seem particularly impressed to be escorting Neville around the school. In fact, he didn't seem particularly impressed with Neville in general, and he made sure that Neville saw the way he looked down his long nose at the sight of him.

Filch was certainly careful to make sure Neville didn't hear the password when he spoke it to the gargoyle guarding the Head's office, as if he considered himself to be wiser than the Headmistress in determining Neville's trustworthiness. Neville restrained himself from rolling his eyes and pointing out that McGonagall wanted him as a Professor and so would hardly care if he was given the password.

Neville was initially glad that Filch didn't follow him up the stairs. However, when he stepped into the Headmistress's office on his own and McGonagall's eyes met his, Neville found himself longing for some kind of back-up, or distraction, even if it was just Filch. Those eyes, even when they weren't aimed at him in a particularly accusing way, still made Neville feel like that boy of thirteen who'd let his list of passwords into the Gryffindor dormitory fall into Sirius Black's hands.

Professor McGonagall and Percy Weasley had a lot in common, Neville realised.

Neville suddenly felt so very out of his league.

He forced himself not to cower away from her, instead stepping slightly unsteadily forward into the office.

"Mr Longbottom," McGonagall greeted. She gestured at the seat in front of her desk. "I expected to receive an owl well before you came all the way up to the school."

Neville didn't sit down. He didn't intend to be there long enough to bother with sitting, after all.

"Why did you offer me a job?"

McGonagall surveyed him seriously. "I should have thought that obvious. I have a position open and I think you're fit for the job, young and inexperienced though you may be now."

Neville rolled his eyes at her, for once too annoyed to care about showing disrespect to a teacher. "I'm a convicted criminal."

"You're a convicted rule-breaker. Your actions were not criminal. Or they wouldn't have been under a more reasonable regime, at least."

"Maybe not. But I'm about to be a convicted criminal. I assaulted Percy Weasley without real provocation. It was all over the papers. I'll be in Azkaban in no time. That'll probably clash with my teaching schedule, I'd say."

Neville thought he saw McGonagall's lips quirk into the beginnings of a smile, but they seemed to restrain themselves. "That's not the story Mr Weasley told the Ministry after the _Prophet_ released that story. You really should take legal action for libel after all the ridiculous articles they've written about you."

"Percy was the one who told me I'd have no leg to stand on if I sued." Neville was certain he looked as stunned as he felt. "So what's Percy saying now, then?"

"He says that he hurt himself when he tripped and fell into the wall, and that you were only there with him to ask if he needed help. He refused to take Veritaserum; the right of witnesses other than suspects to refuse that is one of the few liberties the Ministry has left to us, and we may not enjoy even _that_ for much longer, I'm sad to say. The Ministry tried to get the photographer who sold the story to the _Prophet_ to be a witness, but she apparently didn't see what happened at all; she wouldn't admit it, but she'd clearly illegally planted a camera that took photos periodically inside that particular Ministry hallway. So you're the only witness to Mr Weasley's clumsiness, it would seem."

Neville shook his head. "You know that's not true, though. I just admitted it."

McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "Did you? I must have become temporarily deaf at just the wrong moment, then, for I heard nothing of the sort."

It was kind of scary how much like Dumbledore she seemed to be at that moment. Neville wondered if every Head of Hogwarts was at least a little bit barmy. Snape had certainly been certifiable, though in a very different way. And Umbridge, _proper_ Head or not, wasn’t exactly stable either.

Of course, like so many things that Neville Longbottom thought in the privacy of his own mind, he'd never voice such a thought out loud.

"But the Ministry _hates_ me. I'm a trouble-maker, according to them. Do you really want someone like that being a role model for hundreds of impressionable teenagers?"

"Mr Longbottom," Professor McGonagall said with a self-satisfied smile, "that is _precisely_ the sort of person I need on my staff."

* * *

Merlin, Neville thought as he watched the students file into the Great Hall _en masse_. How the hell did he allow himself to be talked into this?

As he watched the Sorting begin, Neville eyed the line of first-years with some trepidation. He remember being that tiny, lining up in front of everyone while they _stared_ at him. He certainly remembered how he'd felt even _smaller_ under the scrutiny, as if he could never measure up to the expectations that he bore on his shoulders. He'd just known that he'd be Sorted into Hufflepuff, and what would his Gran say then?

Now, though, it clearly wasn't _Hufflepuff_ that the students feared being Sorted into. Many of them cast long glances across to the Slytherin table. Neville noted how few students sat there awaiting their new additions. Most of the Slytherins also seemed to be no older than perhaps fourth year. Neville remembered the way the entire House had streamed out of the school when the fighting found its final battlefield at Hogwarts. Clearly many of them had simply never returned.

Professor Flitwick, who had become the new Deputy Headmaster upon McGonagall's promotion, cleared his throat, signalling for silence. When that didn't work, he explicitly called out for the students to quieten down.

At first Neville thought that the students must not have heard Flitwick's quiet squeaks over the sounds of their own voices. However, even when McGonagall stood and called for order in a much louder and clearer voice, the chatter dropped in volume but did not quite cease entirely.

They were ignoring the teachers, Neville realised. They were ignoring _McGonagall_. No one ignored McGonagall. Any sane student knew that she, of all people, was not to be trifled with.

The bottom fell out of Neville's stomach when he realised how unprepared for this he was. He had no chance of keeping the students in check if even his former Head of House was not wholly successful.

The noise gradually fell away as the Sorting began, though several students continued murmuring as if to spite those who had asked for silence.

The first few students were Sorted into Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and received the sort of polite smattering of applause and occasional cheer that Neville remembered from the Sorting ceremonies when he was a student. Davenport, though, who was the first student to be Sorted into Gryffindor, was accompanied to the table by outrageous amounts of screaming and clapping – and even a wolf-whistle, Neville was shocked to notice – as if he had just done something worthy of a hero by merely being placed into a particular House by a talking hat.

Even though he personally had thought it quite the accomplishment, Neville didn't think he'd been quite so well received when he'd been sorted into Gryffindor a decade ago.

Nor did he remember the students hissing and booing when their fellows happened to be sorted into Slytherin. A girl – the third student to be Sorted into Slytherin that night – was even tripped as she walked past the Gryffindor table. A number of boys sitting at the end of the table laughed quietly, as if they didn't want to be caught at it but couldn't quite help themselves. One boy clapped his friend, who had clearly been the one to trip her, on the back in congratulations.

Neville found his mouth hanging open in pure surprise. It was one thing for McGonagall to take him aside at the staff meeting before the Sorting and imply that many of the students had taken the concept of misbehaving to almost epic proportions, but it was quite another thing to see them attacking each other with his own eyes. Neville had always thought that Gryffindors were meant to be brave and true, not petty bullies. They were acting rather more like the Slytherins they sought to condemn. Or rather, like Neville had _expected_ that the Slytherins would act, for the occupants of that particular table were in reality remarkably quiet in response. They seemed unwilling to open their mouths even to welcome the new students to the table as they arrived. Even the girl who had been tripped and was valiantly trying to hold back tears was barely acknowledged upon arrival at the table.

As that girl stumbled into her seat, McGonagall stood up on Neville's right.

"Congratulations, Mr Bouldercombe, you've just begun the school year by putting Gryffindor into negative points. I think fifty for bullying sounds fair."

Neville couldn't imagine not being scared out of his wits, such as his wits had been at that age, if that tone had been directed at _him_ when he was a student. He couldn't imagine not being cowed even now, as a teacher in his own right. However, Bouldercombe merely returned McGonagall's hard gaze steadily and sneered slightly in return.

He didn't care, Neville realised. And nor, by the looks of it, were the rest of the Gryffindor students willing to step up and censure him (even for losing them points, if nothing else).

If Neville had lost fifty points when he was a student, for any reason at all, no one would have spoken to him for days. No, _weeks_. He’d seen it happen to others, even those like Harry who were usually well-liked.

Apparently times had changed. A lot.

Neville was startled when he heard his own name as McGonagall officially introduced him as the new Herbology professor once the Sorting had concluded. He stood up rather shakily and nodded his head towards the students in recognition. Several of them burst into even louder chatter and a few pointed at him in wonder, as if they had somehow failed to notice him sitting right there in front of them at the Head Table until precisely that moment. He was fairly certain he even heard one of the older students call out, "All right there, Neville?"

He thought that was somewhat heartening, at least.

Still, he was happy enough to excuse himself from the High Table and retreat away from the Great Hall when the students were sent off to bed.

He thought he'd find solitude in the staff room; the Heads of House were all off talking to their students, and he'd expected the other teachers to be keen to get as much sleep as they could before school really began the following morning. However, he still found the room occupied upon his arrival.

Neville hovered outside for a moment, unsure whether he should interrupt the conversation in which McGonagall and Vector seemed to be engrossed. Then he heard his name and flattened himself against the wall close to the crack in the open doorway enough so that he could still hear them without risking being seen.

"– really such a good idea to be hiring on inexperienced teachers? Especially ones who are _that_ young. The students will eat him for breakfast, surely?"

"He may not seem it, but Longbottom's made of sturdy material. He's been battered around just enough in his life that he can likely handle a bit more."

"Did you notice how shocked he was at the feast earlier?" Vector asked. "You did let him know what he was getting into, didn't you?"

"I… alluded to it. He would have likely refused to take the job had I openly said that the students are rebelling against us, even though I'm sure he can handle it. His self-confidence could still use some work, though it's much better than it was when he first arrived a Hogwarts as a student himself, of course."

"That wasn't so long ago, really. He was a student less than half a decade ago. In fact, the boy – the _man_ , now, I suppose – began the students' revolt in the first place, even if the reason for it back then was a little different."

"Precisely. They respect him for it. He may be a teacher, but to them he's almost still one of them. I think they'll listen to him."

Neville blinked and retreated away from the door at which he'd been eavesdropping. He travelled silently back to his quarters on the fourth floor, his mind racing.

He wondered if this was how Harry had felt, with all hopes resting on his shoulders. Granted, Harry’s mission had been a little more extreme than reigning in a bunch of teenagers, no matter how rebellious, but still.

What if Neville failed in controlling the students like McGonagall and the other staff clearly hoped he would? Would they regret asking him onto the staff? Would they realise that they'd made a mistake in asking him to teach when clearly he wasn't fit for the job?

Neville didn't fall asleep for hours after that. His fear of what would happen if he failed – _when_ he failed, some dark voice that sounded suspiciously like Snape suggested at the back of his mind, though he tried very hard to brush it aside – formed a sort of waking nightmare that sleep would not easily vanquish.

* * *

I'm not afraid of them, Neville told himself steadily. They're only students. I was a student not all that long ago. And now I have power over them. I can take House points and assign detention if there're any problems. I'm not afraid of them.

It was like a chant repeating steadily in his mind as he strode out of the castle towards the greenhouses, where he would be expecting his first class (fifth year Gryffindor and Ravenclaw) in twenty minutes.

Neville saw Luna Lovegood pottering about across the grounds, presumably preparing for the first Care of Magical Creatures Class of the year. She'd replaced Hagrid the previous year when he'd left the school. Hagrid hadn't given a reason for his departure, but no one had apparently felt the need to ask him about it. Neville couldn't say he really blamed the man. The school had changed with the war, and it was clearly not the same place Hagrid had once known and loved.

Neville would have gone over to talk to Luna – he liked her despite her weirdness, or maybe even because of it – but he could see a pack of students approaching from the path leading down from the back of the castle. His students.

Good Merlin, Neville actually had _students_. Who would actually expect him to _teach_ them.

Just remember, he thought, it's their O.W.L. year. They're most likely too worried about soaking up everything they can learn to give two brain cells’ worth of thought to who's doing the teaching. After all, half of them are Ravenclaws.

When the students were all gathered outside Greenhouse Three, Neville cleared his throat, attempting to sound authoritative, and gestured towards the greenhouse. The students fell more silent than he'd heard since he'd arrived, though two or three continued whispering and tossed furtive glances in Neville's direction as they filed past him.

"Welcome to O.W.L. level Herbology," Neville said as loudly and clearly as he could manage once he'd directed all the students inside the greenhouse. His voice echoed slightly off the glass walls. "I'm Professor Longbottom. Many of you may remember me from my own time at school."

"Yeah, we remember you, Neville," one of the Gryffindor boys in the back who Neville was fairly certain was named Peaks snorted. He coughed something that sounded quite a bit like, "Shirt-lifter!"

Neville frowned and tried to ignore the chorus of uncertain laughs that echoed throughout some of the group.

"As you'll probably hear from all of your teachers this year, the fact that your O.W.L.s are just around the corner means that you'll be learning more difficult concepts, and that you'll have to work harder than ever to keep up with the work as well as revising your previous years work in preparation for the exams."

"What's so difficult about Herbology?" Peaks called out. This time he clearly meant Neville to respond to him. "It's just feeding plants and harvesting bits from them. It's hardly as difficult as _Potions_ , say. I bet even people who fail miserably at Potions can pass Herbology with flying colours. Didn't _you_ have trouble with Potions, _Professor_?"

He leered at Neville as this time the laughter was slightly more pronounced, though some of the students merely looked at the ground and kept their mouths closed.

Neville realised at that moment that McGonagall had been wrong. Many of these students didn't care one whit that he'd been one of the people to lead them – or their older counterparts, at least – into the jaws of battle against the Death Eaters masquerading as teachers. They didn't care that he'd stood up to even Snape in the end, when it had counted. All they, even his fellow Gryffindors, saw was the boy he had once been, who had let himself be bullied and who had always forgotten things and whose worst fear in the world had been Professor Snape.

He tried to tell them that he'd passed Potions well enough, actually, and thanks so much for showing an interest. He also stressed that people tended to specialise in certain fields and the fact that they weren't good in one didn't have any bearing on their performance in another. However, it didn't take a genius to realise that they weren't really listening, or at least not all of them were.

"And what's so important about exams anyway?" a girl standing near Peaks whose name Neville didn't know chipped in. "The way I hear it, people like Harry Potter who got average O.W.L.s and didn't even _sit_ the N.E.W.T.s are practically running the Ministry of Magic now, while some people who managed Outstandings in their field can't even get a single Ministry committee to pay attention to them. Isn't that true, Professor?"

He should have been surprised that rumours of his career thus far had apparently managed to circulate the school in the few hours since the students' arrival. He found, though, that he really wasn't. He remembered the Hogwarts grapevine all too well.

"Hell," Neville muttered under his breath as the girl who'd questioned him smiled angelically and, of all things, battered her eyelashes innocently.

If the rest of his students were like this class, he thought it might be a good idea to start banging his head against the greenhouse wall until he passed out and be done with it.

* * *

His day _didn't_ get any better after that. In fact, if anything, it seemed to slide further downhill which each passing hour.

Though some of his students seemed willing enough to listen to him – to even learn a thing or two from what he was saying, by the look of it – reports of his first class standing up to him travelled fast. By that afternoon whispers about 'Nervous Neville' seemed to follow him around. Even his last class of the day, which was comprised of wide-eyed first years, looked a lot less impressed with him and his subject than they perhaps should have been, all things considered.

He left the Great Hall having done little more than pick at his plate, more interested in finding someplace private than in continuing to stare at food that he had no intention of eating.

He had grown so accustomed to being alone during his research that being surrounded by so many chattering students was really getting on his nerves.

Neville's first thought was to go to the Room of Requirement, which had been his refuge at Hogwarts. However, the room's existence was hardly a secret anymore. In fact, he'd heard one of his seventh year students muttering to her friend during class that so many students had been found utilising the room for… well, for purposes that the teachers didn't particularly approve of, that McGonagall had placed wards around the entrance and enlisted Filch to keep a particularly close eye on that corridor.

Neville felt sure he could bypass Filch. He could probably even convince the wards to let him through as well. However, the thought that some inventive students could do the same and stumble upon him there – or that he might stumble upon them there, which could be so much worse – made the idea seem less than appetising.

Neville didn't so much as consider going to the staff room. The idea of being asked about his day while the teacher questioning him looked at him with knowing eyes would have been enough to put him off his dinner even if he had felt like eating in the first place.

So Neville took to spending his time in his tightly locked quarters. Not just that evening, but every subsequent evening that week. He emerged just long enough so that he could honestly say he'd been in his office during office hours. He would refrain, if asked, from mentioning that he wasn't there for the entire duration of those office hours. It wasn't as if any of the students actually came to see him in his office, anyway.

He'd been surprised, though, to see a seventh-year whose name he hadn't learned (it was still the first week, he assured himself, surely not even a teacher with a _good_ memory could have learned all their names in that time) approaching him after the double Herbology N.E.W.T. class. She was pulled bodily away by Dennis Creevey.

"I just want to ask a question!" the girl protested.

"He probably doesn't know the answer anyway, the fat lump," Creevey had replied, not troubling to keep his voice down.

Neville had been left standing at the front of the greenhouse with his mouth gaping open, watching the girl be reluctantly dragged away.

"I'm not fat," he muttered mutinously. Maybe once he might have been a bit chubby, but he wasn't that little boy anymore, and he really wished the students would see that. But then he realised how childish he had sounded and was glad he hadn't said it loud enough for Creevey to actually hear him.

It was one of the very few times when Neville _didn't_ wish he could have brought himself to say what he was thinking.

He didn't think he'd ever done anything that would warrant such cold behaviour from Creevey. The boy had seemed such a quiet kid when Neville had been in school with him. Neville would never have guessed he had a mean-spirited bone in his body. He'd even been a member of the DA, despite how young he had been at the time.

With even students like Creevey treating him with something less than respect, Neville would have been only too happy to continue cutting his available consultation times well and truly short.

But then he realised that perhaps that seventh-year girl hadn't been the only student unable to see him directly after class because of the other students' opinions of him. Perhaps there were others who were unwilling to even try to ask questions where those students like Peaks, Creevey and Bouldercombe could see, for fear of themselves becoming targets of bullying. What if they'd tried to see him once he'd already left his office early for the night?

Even if only one or two students cared enough about Herbology to want to see their Professor outside class, Neville owed it to them to be there for them. After all, where there were Ravenclaws, there were students who cared more about study than what sort of reputation their teacher had.

Somehow, though, the students who were almost violently against other students seeking him out caught on to the fact that he was no longer hiding away in his quarters. They not only breached the wards that protected his office when he wasn't using it, but also launched several Dungbombs into it so that that day after class he couldn't get two steps inside the door without choking. The air-freshening charm he cast only went so far, but Neville forced himself to remain in his office with a Bubble-Head Charm on for the usual amount of time, even though the repulsive smell meant that there was even less chance than usual of a student bothering to come see him.

That wasn't the point. He knew it would only be worse if he didn't stay, if he let them win.

The following day, Neville found that there was yet another surprise awaiting him in his office. Written across his back wall in red were the words 'Heroes don't let people die. You're no hero.'

Apparently McGonagall had been wrong when she'd claimed that the students had stopped spelling graffiti on the walls.

The words had left a sick feeling in his stomach. He hadn't let anyone die during the war where he could have prevented it. He hadn't even directly seen anyone's death. Aside from, of course, Sirius Black, whose death had, in a very real way, marked the beginning of the war.

He couldn't prove for sure who his accuser had been, but Dennis Creevey wore a strange sort of defiant grin in his N.E.W.T. Herbology class the next day.

It was then that Neville realised he might have an idea what Creevey's problem was after all. Though he did wonder whether it was teachers in general or Neville specifically that Creevey blamed for not being able to save his brother from dying.

Neville felt about as welcome by then as Umbridge had been at the school, especially since it was his fellow Gryffindors who were the worst of all. He almost thought of having a word with their recently-instated Head of House, Professor Babbling, but that would require admitting that he wasn't coping as well as the rest of the Professors had hoped he would. Besides, she scarcely had any more control over the rowdier students than Neville did, so what help was she likely to be?

Besides, it wasn't as if all the students were actively misbehaving. Clearly a lot of them were uncomfortable about the whole thing, and others were just going along with it to avoid making trouble for themselves. If Neville could get through to the real trouble-makers – and there were really only twenty or so of them in the whole school, he'd figured out – then things would settle themselves.

So, he decided, it was really better to keep his problems to himself for now. He could handle it, just as McGonagall had said he could.

* * *

When one of the Ravenclaws handed in an assignment that was filled with truly disgusting and obscene slurs on Neville's character, Neville decided that even though he probably _could_ handle it himself, maybe he should at least let McGonagall know. After all, remembering as well as he did how strict McGonagall had always been, Neville imagined she wouldn't be impressed with him if she found out from some other source that he was completely failing to keep order in his classroom.

She wasn't in her office when he arrived, but Neville knew for a fact she had no meetings or anything scheduled at that time, so she wouldn't be far away. For once he remembered the password that he’d been given – the one for the Headmistress's office – and he went upstairs to wait.

No sooner had Neville set down his briefcase full of student papers, with the offending piece of rubbish sitting at the top of the pile, than he heard a voice that clearly did not belong to McGonagall coming from seemingly nowhere.

"Adding breaking and entering to your growing list of crimes are you, Longbottom?"

Neville knew that voice. Neville could never hope to forget that voice.

"P-Professor?"

Neville turned around to find that a portrait of Professor Snape was glaring down at him from the wall amongst the other Heads of Hogwarts. It hadn't occurred to Neville that his image would be there along with the other past Heads. Snape had never seemed like the _real_ Headmaster, after all.

Neville backed away slightly without meaning to.

"That’s right, get out,” Snape spat. “You don't belong here. You're useless, Longbottom, just like you've always been. Get out before you break something that’s several times more valuable than you are. Get out, _get out_."

Neville heard Dumbledore's portrait admonishing, "Now, Severus…" but he was already almost out the door, fleeing from the sound of Snape's angry voice. He heard the sound of Snape's laughter perhaps for the first time ever. It followed him out.

It was one thing to sneak around behind Snape's back in his seventh year, but Neville had never really overcome his terror whenever Snape focused his ire on him. His first instinct was always to run and hide, and he couldn't always stop his feet from taking him away to do just that.

He remembered later that he'd let Snape drive him away before he could see McGonagall. He also remembered that he'd left his briefcase, full of student assignments, lying on McGonagall's desk.

* * *

The seventh-year students whose essays he'd left on the deeply scarred old wooden desk in McGonagall's office were predictably annoyed not to receive their assignments back, marked, during their next class.

Neville heard more than one of them muttering about his bumbling incompetence, or other words to that effect. Bouldercombe glared at him outright and raised his voice so that he could be certain Neville could hear.

Bouldercombe's paper was likely as bad as paper he'd been intending to hand over to the Headmistress. He could imagine it would be an essay on the evils and cowardice of a certain House in Hogwarts, and the respective guilt of certain teachers who tried to treat the students in question as if they were _equals_ , Merlin forbid. Neville was just as happy not to mark that sort of drivel, really.

Neville took points when they mocked him. They took no notice. Everything was as per usual.

The next time Neville had a lesson with that same class several days later, he saw actual disappointment in one or two sets of eyes when they still didn't receive their papers back. Neville quickly realised that, even apart from the fact that they were unlikely to complete the next assignment he gave them unless they knew he'd bothered to mark their last one, it wasn't right to just give their work up as a lost cause, even temporarily. He remembered staying up into all hours of the night trying to complete N.E.W.T. level assignments (in the first half of his seventh year when he'd actually attended classes, at least). He knew that at least a couple of the students must have put in some real effort. Not all of the students were being forced to attend school by their parents, after all.

He was there to teach, and as long as there were even just a couple of students who were there to learn, he owed it to _those_ students to read their essays and give feedback.

That, unfortunately, meant facing his fears.

Neville journeyed up to McGonagall's office only to find that she must have been out and about again. He ascended the stairs as slowly as he could justify to himself, though he knew he was only drawing out the inevitable.

He had told himself that he wasn't coming back for the papers because the students didn't deserve to have them marked anyway, but the real reason he'd stayed away was even simpler than that.

He was afraid. Of a portrait. He felt as young and incompetent at that thought as he ever had as – as Snape himself would put it – a 'bumbling, useless lump' of a first year.

He had to do this, though, and not merely to retrieve the papers in question. There was no way his students would ever respect him if he couldn't stand up to them, and he couldn't stand up to them if he couldn't stand up for himself in general. And what better way to conquer his fears?

The thought of it didn't make him any less afraid.

It was hard to believe, looking at how afraid he was then, that Neville had forced himself to stand up to real live (looming) version of Snape only a few years earlier. He'd even gone so far as to break into Snape's office and attempt to steal from him, then.

It was strange, but sometimes Neville missed the war. He missed the man he'd become then. Not for the first time, Neville wondered whether he'd been an entirely different person during the war. He wished that person had stuck around. _He_ wouldn't be scared of going near Snape. Or he probably wouldn't have run away like a first year, anyway.

Neville steeled himself and remembered that he had clearly been brave enough to force himself to attend Potions class for five straight years of terror. The brave man he'd been during the war was buried somewhere inside him, surely. That being the case, he could certainly return to the Headmistress's office alone, just once, and just for a few moments.

"I wondered if you'd eventually come back, Longbottom. I expected you might be too afraid."

Neville tried to ignore him as he entered the room, purposely avoiding looking anywhere but towards the floor. When he looked up enough to spy the desk, however, he realised that his briefcase had been moved. Clearly McGonagall had needed to use her own desk, and she'd probably moved it to search it for dark spells even despite that; she wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave an unidentified object just lying around. Neville felt like an idiot for not expecting it.

"I must admit to being stunned that the Headmistress hired you on. Do you think it was a moment of insanity, or has she actually gone so senile as to believe that _you_ would make a good teacher?"

Neville tried very hard to ignore him as he ducked around the office searching for a glimpse of the familiar sight of battered black leather.

"Of course, I'm apparently not the only person who believes in your incompetence. A number of parents have come through this very office to complain, either because their children think you're an idiot or because they themselves remember how much of an imbecile you are. Even the Ministry sent someone to talk to McGonagall. There must be something _terribly_ wrong when Percy Weasley, of all people, thinks that _you're_ an overbearing prat."

Neville's hands fumbled for just a moment, but it was clearly enough to let Snape know that he was surprised. He gave up the pretence and asked, "Percy? Why was he here?"

"He's representing the Ministry on the Board of Governors now. Don't start thinking you have a friend there, though. He doesn't seem to like you very much. Oh yes, even your fellow Gryffindors think you're incompetent. Especially the students. They say such interesting things about you, 'Nervous Neville'. I must admit that I never heard that particular endearment while you were a student. Did your 'friends' reserve it for taunting you away from prying eyes and ears?"

Neville's eyebrows scrunched closer together, but still he said nothing in response.

"You must give my compliments to the student who began his petition to the Headmistress for your removal by describing every detail of what his father has ever said about your 'crackpot schemes'. Something-or-other Rodricks, I recall. A Ravenclaw, isn't he?" He was, Neville thought. In fact, he was the Ravenclaw whose paper had pushed Neville to come up to that office in the first place. "His father's part of the Ministry, as I recall," Snape continued. "What's wrong, Longbottom, weren't you allowed to join Potter and the others in 'shaping a better future' for the magical world?"

"Shut up," Neville muttered.

"What was that? I didn't quite hear you."

Neville slammed his hand against the small cupboard he'd been searching through looking for his case. His hand throbbed against the cold metal in time with the blood vessels in his temples. He turned around to look directly at the portrait of Snape for the first time since his arrival in the office.

"I said, 'shut up'," Neville replied gamely. "You've no right to throw their comments back in my face. It's your fault they're even acting like this! They feel like they can't trust the teachers anymore; and it's all the teachers, not just me."

If Snape could have stalked across the room to loom over Neville, he probably would have then. Even though he couldn't, Neville still felt like Snape was towering over him from clear across the room, even as a two-dimensional painting. "Let's not forget that it was _you_ who taught them to fight against their teachers in the first place. I'm sure you haven't forgotten a certain incident with a sword in your final year? You weren't the only student to break into my office that year. The rest of them took their cue from you, and they didn't just attempt to steal things. I could barely see the walls for all the graffiti, though they left the old Heads' portraits alone, at least. A few second-hand insults, I think, don't even compare to that. It's time you face up to the truth about yourself anyway."

Snape looked more menacing than ever in that moment.

Neville wanted to crawl into a hole. Snape had always scared the hell out of him, and that hadn't really changed to any huge extent. However, Neville had learned during the war that things like fear could be used in other ways. Fear caused adrenaline, which could be used for fight rather than flight. Fear, in essence, could be converted into bravery. Fear could give a person the energy they needed to get through a battle alive. Fear was just intense emotion. It didn't need to overcome him. He could use it.

Easier said than done, of course, but Neville had to try.

"You can't hurt me," Neville said, hoping that Snape couldn't detect the slight shaking in his body and his voice. Somehow he thought that might be too much to ask.

"Can't I?" Snape asked, baring teeth that, probably for the first time since they first came through his gums as a child, were pearly white (though still somewhat crooked). "Who do you think the Headmistress consults when making a decision? I could have you fired within hours."

Neville gritted his teeth.

"You're just paint and canvas and an animation spell," he said. "You can't hurt anyone. I could silence you if I wanted. You can't do anything to me now," Neville said. And then he realised what he was saying; realised that it wasn't just words to make himself feel better and braver, but rather the truth. His breathing raced in a combination of excitement over having just stood up to _Snape_ and fear that somehow, despite his own words, there would be some reprisal for his actions.

"Careful, now, Longbottom," Snape warned.

Neville glared at him. "No, I don't have to be careful. _I'm_ the one with the power, here. And I'll prove it to you. I went to the library earlier –"

"A novel experience for you, I'm sure."

"– and I looked up a spell to remove a portrait by wiping the paint clear off the canvas. _You_ should be careful, or I just might use it."

"You couldn't cast a charm if your life depended on it, Longbottom, especially one like that. Do you realise how many preservation spells are on this portrait?"

"Actually, I _could_ do it. I know I could, because I've cast spells more powerful than the one it would take to get rid of you. Maybe I would have just caved at whatever you said while I was still a student, but I've helped win a war since then. I'm a Gryffindor more than just in name."

Neville turned around and went back to searching for the briefcase.

"Well done, Neville," Dumbledore's portrait said.

"It's about time he grew a backbone," Snape's portrait muttered grudgingly in response.

Neville smiled, though he was glad that his back was to Snape's portrait so that he didn't see the pleased tilt of Neville's lips.

Backbone or no, Neville didn’t think he wanted to _encourage_ Snape’s wrath any more than was absolutely necessary.

* * *


	3. Part Three

PART THREE

"Hello, Luna," Neville said as Luna sat down next to him at lunch for the first time since he'd arrived at Hogwarts. He smiled at her. "How are you?"

"A bit under the weather, actually," she said. "I think my room is infested with Grabplankers. Their skin sheddings make me sneeze, but I can't bring myself to turn them out. They've nowhere else to live, you know. I'm thinking of bringing them out temporarily to show my class, but they're very good at hiding, so I haven't caught one yet."

His smile broadened as he spoke. The class would be no less strange and unpredictable than when Hagrid had taught it, but Neville suspected it might not be quite as dangerous. Although… He pictured a whole class of students trekking through the Forbidden Forest hunting for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and snickered to himself.

"Speaking of class topics, was it difficult for you to make up class plans? I'm finding it hard, and that’s even with Professor Sprout having been brilliant about leaving notes for me. It all must have been fairly up in the air last year, what with Hagrid leaving so quickly."

Luna smiled. "I didn't really make plans; I think the best lessons are learned at the spur of the moment."

Neville doubted that idea could really be applied to teaching at a place like Hogwarts, but it would be truly futile to point that out to Luna.

"It was sad about Professor Hagrid, though," she continued airily. "Professor McGonagall said that he ran off in quite a hurry. I'd only just returned from vacation with my father when I received the owl. I'd been helping him out with the paper since I left school last year, you know, but then he sold it off so he could better spend his time on his expeditions."

"Your father sold the _Quibbler_?" Neville asked, stunned.

"Yes, of course. Haven't you noticed how terribly written it's been lately?"

Neville muttered in embarrassment about being out of the country, not wanting to let on that he wouldn't have read the _Quibbler_ even if he'd been in Britain all along. It was the only paper that could be counted on to write a completely truthful article, certainly, but the 'truth' in question was frequently ridiculous and insane.

"But he refuses to buy the paper back, even though it's being wrecked now. He's not interested in writing about the goings-on in the Ministry right now, you see, and that's all anyone wants to read about, so the paper just wasn't selling. It's very strange, don't you think? Reports about Yerblasters are much more interesting than any politics."

"Interesting. That's one word for it," Neville muttered good-naturedly under his breath.

Luna gave him her trademark sort of vague smile. "I suspect Professor Hagrid may have left because he doesn't like politics either. He missed Headmaster Dumbledore, and he didn't like that the Ministry were always getting involved once Dumbledore was gone. It's not the same around here without him, is it? Less cheerful. Less exciting."

Neville wondered whether Luna had somehow managed to become sane in the two years since he'd seen her, because that actually made a lot of sense. Of course Hagrid would feel particularly affected by having to stand by while Hogwarts' good reputation was slowly sullied by disparaging students. It must have been a painful reminder each and every day that Dumbledore and his influence were gone, and that things could never be quite the same, as Luna said.

"For once, Luna," Neville said uncertainly, "what you're saying makes absolute sense to me. I think I'm a bit scared, really."

Luna shrugged. "Well, it's only a small part of the reason, of course. I hear that he actually found a Snorkack horn deep in the Forbidden Forest and is off to make his fortune auctioning it off. He'll be able to live on the income from that for _years_ , I imagine."

Neville rolled his eyes good-naturedly. _That_ was the Luna he'd come to know and, yes, even to love.

* * *

Though she regularly talked to Neville at meals from then on, Luna Lovegood generally kept to herself just as much as a Professor as she had when she was an outcast student. It took Neville a while – longer than he would like to admit, truth be told – to realise that the reason for her seclusion was probably that, like Neville, most of the students remembered Luna from her own school days. She had, after all, only been away from school for barely half a year before Hagrid had departed abruptly and needed to be replaced.

Neville hadn't noticed that Luna was being treated any differently than the other teachers, who all received some amount of crap from the students, until he witnessed the students actively teasing her. Luna, off in her own world as usual, hadn't even seemed to notice that they were talking to her, even though they were clearly chanting, "Loony Lovegood," as they followed her out onto the grounds. Since Luna didn't seem bothered by it, Neville let that occasion slide, but he vowed to keep a closer eye on her from then on.

The students seemed to take her ability to ignore them as a challenge, though. Unlike with the rest of the teachers, Neville included, they were no more subtle in mocking her than they were in pushing the younger and more defenceless Slytherins into walls in the hallways (which, the two times Neville had caught them doing it, had cost them a good number of House points, not that they'd taken much notice). There were also a lot more students interested in having a go at Luna than there were students who misbehaved in Neville's classes.

By all accounts, it seemed that Luna was widely considered fair game.

Neville begged to disagree.

Neville even came across a group of them surrounding her in the hallway and openly mocking her appearance, her intelligence and her _father_ , of all things, all in one breath. Luckily for them, they had dispersed before he reached them.

Neville would have liked to have cursed the lot of them as they walked away. Forget the rules about teachers using corporal punishment; maybe a jinx or a curse was just what those brats needed right at that moment.

Neville took a moment to realise that he sounded like Snape inside his own head. He shuddered just a little.

But it was one thing when one or two of them insulted Neville. It was quite another to pick on Luna, who was… well, who was _Luna_. A bit addled, but harmless. And, perhaps more importantly, unlikely to defend herself.

Their taunts didn't seem to perturb Luna any more than they had done while she was a student herself, though. She shrugged it off easily and barely acknowledged that anything was out of the ordinary. For her, Neville supposed, it _was_ all perfectly normal.

He remembered, then, that this bullying instinct that some of the students seemed to be acting upon was hardly new to Hogwarts. Luna had been on the tail end of it for years. It was just that now the targets of the bullying were the entirety of the staff and a whole House in addition to the usual one or two oddball children that no one paid much mind except to remark cruelly upon their strangeness.

Whether it had been around for years or not, though, it just wasn't right. And though Neville wasn't always quick to stand up for himself, he understood that something had to be done when things were inherently wrong.

Neville felt thoroughly disgusted with himself for not standing up for Luna before she'd ever had time to grow accustomed to being the butt of an eternal joke. It hardly mattered that he hadn't known her until she'd already lived through three years of it. Logic was irrelevant when it came to guilt.

Well, there was no time like the present to make amends.

Neville found that the students weren't quite so careful about sticking just to words with Luna. They'd probably figured that she wouldn't tell anyone or do anything about it, since she never had before.

They didn't count on Neville seeing one of the seventh-year Ravenclaw boys tripping her in the hallways.

There it was. His cue could not have been any more obvious if he had seen it in flashing lights, because he practically saw red then. Enough was enough.

 _No more_.

"Two hundred points from Ravenclaw for attacking a teacher!" Neville shouted from down the hall.

Every person in the hallway stopped and turned to look at him as he bustled down the hallway to Luna's side. She dusted herself off as if she'd just taken a fall rather than been all but pushed on the way down.

"And if I ever see you so much as look at a Professor the wrong way again, Rodricks, you won't see the outside of detention until you leave Hogwarts for good."

"You –"

"And if you don't like it,” Neville added darkly, “I suggest you explain your case to the Headmistress and see if she doesn't decide to expel you straight away instead. Perhaps you'd rather that, since you _clearly_ don't really want to be at Hogwarts anyway."

"The Headmistress won't –"

The height Neville had gained since leaving school made looming over Rodricks quite effective, Neville decided. It made for a nice bluff. Rodricks clearly agreed, as he was quick to snap his mouth shut.

"The Headmistress may be cutting the students some slack after the war, but you clearly haven’t seen her as angry as this would make her if you think you can underestimate her. Or me, for that matter. This ends now. You’ll start behaving like a human being, and like someone who deserves to be at Hogwarts, or you’ll be removed."

Rodricks muttered something and stormed away from Neville.

"That's another twenty from Ravenclaw for not showing the proper respect," Neville called after him, but he let him go otherwise unimpeded. He expended his energy instead on making sure Luna made it to her class without the students trying to retaliate against her for Neville's actions. He subtly took her by the elbow and led her outside.

She merely started chattering away about her third year class as if nothing interesting had taken place. Neville didn't think he'd ever met anyone quite like Luna Lovegood before. He imagined what it must be like to live in a completely different world to everyone else.

It must be brilliant, Neville decided, because she seemed to be the only teacher who was completely unaffected by the ongoing power struggle within the school even though the students treated her by far the worst of anyone other than the Slytherin students.

Strangely, Neville also felt somewhat less affected whenever she was around. They were very alike, in some very key ways. It was nice to have someone with whom he could so easily coexist – someone his own age, even – at the school.

Things were looking up, he decided.

"So tell me more about the Scrumdingers," Neville requested, and he marvelled at how Luna's wide eyes seemed even more alight at his interest.

* * *

"Professor Longbottom. Can I speak with you in my office?"

Neville frowned and changed trajectory, abandoning the plans he'd been making regarding a nice hot cup of tea and a long bath to wash away the problems of the day. Clearly his day wasn't quite over yet after all. He hoped that this 'meeting with McGonagall wouldn't make it any worse.

He followed her to her office and up the stairs, then sat when she indicated to a seat.

"I have heard that you had an encounter with a group of students who were apparently bullying Professor Lovegood earlier today."

"Yes. Rodricks deserves to be expelled, really, but I'm hoping that just the threat of it will force him to think before he acts next time."

McGonagall, in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, pinched the bridge of her nose just above her spectacles as if to stave off a headache.

"I'm not certain anymore that threats are enough," she admitted. "I don't think I've done the students any favours by not expelling some of them before now."

Neville had, in fact, wondered how students such as Rodricks could possibly have survived the last few years since the war without having felt McGonagall's teacherly wrath.

"We – or rather I, since the other teachers have merely followed my lead and gone along with my wishes – thought it best for the children to try to keep them in school as long as possible. Hogwarts was always a safe haven while Professor Dumbledore was here, and I've tried to make it so again, but I've found that the students aren't particularly appreciative of the effort. However, whether they're grateful or not, I don't want to cast them away from the school with things as they are now. The students who are acting out, as you may have noticed, are usually those who have lost their family during the war or who lost their family to the Ministry's crime purges afterwards. They're hurt and resentful, and if I expel them and send them out in the world while they're still that way, they're just as likely as not to do something stupid enough to be arrested and sentenced to Azkaban. More so, in fact, since they would also be bitter about their expulsion on top of everything else."

Neville nodded. "The Ministry's new laws and policies are making everything worse."

"They don't seem to see it,” McGonagall sighed tiredly. “They don't see how they're separating families and ruining lives over _nothing_. Two wizards draw their wands on each other in a moment of weakness and they're both sentenced to Azkaban despite the fact that neither of them ever got a chance to cast a spell, and may not have done even if left to deal with it without interference. Azkaban is meant to be for real criminals. If those who have been sent there for petty reasons ever get out, all their time locked away will have likely done is made them into criminals of the highest order."

"I can't imagine what it would be like if the Dementors were still under Ministry control," Neville shuddered.

"I just wanted to keep the students in Hogwarts until things went back to normal in the Ministry. I didn't think it would last," McGonagall remarked. "I expected that those in the Ministry who have common sense would point out how terrible the fallout of the zero tolerance policy has already been. But everyone who isn't part of the Minister's regime is too scared to speak up, and with good reason."

Neville couldn't agree more. He was one of those people who was running scared. He'd been to Azkaban; he didn't want to go back. And yet…

And yet if enough of them could overcome their fear, they might have a chance.

"The longer we wait to do something about it, the more people who are willing to stand up to the Ministry will have been picked off, labelled as rebels and sent to Azkaban," Neville said.

McGonagall nodded. "I don't know what to do," she admitted. "If we don't start expelling students things at Hogwarts will spiral out of control. But I can't rationalise sending any of them out into the world while the world is already so far out of control already."

The idea that even someone as strong as McGonagall could be at a loss was one of the most frightening things Neville had ever considered.

"We'll just have to wait a little longer," Neville said quietly. "Doors are closing all over the place; there's got to be a window opening somewhere, don’t you think?"

"That's either very naïve or very insightful."

McGonagall’s 'I hope it's not just wishful thinking' went unsaid.

Neville was glad for once to be left to his delusions, if that was what they were.

* * *

Neville didn't know why anyone would ever _want_ to be famous. Fame was a burden far more often than a blessing, he'd found. Like now, when not only the students but also the _Daily Prophet_ seemed to have forgotten earlier rumours about his homosexuality in order to spread new rumours about his so-called 'whirl-wind romance' with Luna Lovegood. Even Peaks, who had called him a shirt-lifter to his face within the first few minutes of his first class, couldn't seem to help himself when it came to taunting Neville about his knight-in-shining-armour complex and his helpless girlfriend.

Neville was slightly perturbed that standing up for someone had come to be equated with wanting to have sex with them. He certainly didn’t have any interest of that kind in Luna, whatever the rest of the world was saying.

He did wish, though, that people would leave Luna alone. Neville might not really care so much, but he wasn't going to let people keep bullying her. He kept an even closer eye than ever on her from then on.

That was, in fact, the only reason why he was aware of it when, of all people, Percy Weasley showed up and started following Luna around as she tended to the magical creatures she was using for her next lesson.

"The students are complaining, Professor Lovegood, and the Ministry is very concerned. Hogwarts must maintain a certain standard of education in all its classes or the students will go looking for knowledge elsewhere."

"Is that why the Ministry is locking away every person who has an original thought?" Neville called out as he approached the pair hastily. "Are they afraid that if we don't agree with them that we'll all run off and become the next generation of Voldemorts?"

Percy shuddered at the name. "Yes, Mr Longbottom, they _are_ worried. Considering you were in the thick of the war, I would think that you would be worried, too. I don't understand why you insist on trying to divert the Ministry's attention to other less pressing concerns. Things like the benefit of the doubt are simply impossible in times like these. We must be vigilant."

"You know, Percy, sometimes you sound like a walking Ministry advertisement," Neville said, shaking his head.

Percy opened his mouth to reply – angrily, by the look of it – but he was interrupted before a single harsh noise could make it out.

"The Ministry likes watching everyone, I think," Luna said. "They can't stand not being in control of everyone and everything, so it watches every move of every person it possibly can. The Ministry's using the _Daily Prophet_ as a surveillance tool. There are bugs everywhere, creeping through the walls like recalcitrant Hibberflumpers."

Neville would ordinarily have dismissed Luna's words as rambling. As much as he liked her, he had long ago accepted that not all of what she said was necessarily sane or logical. However, every now and then she said something quite poignant. Thinking back on the photo taken of him hitting Percy, and what McGonagall had said about the illegal planting of cameras, Neville suspected that this might just be one of those moments.

Percy sighed in exasperation. "Professor Lovegood, really, I think we've all had more than enough of your conspiracy theories. Now, if we could get back to the topic at hand, I'd like to talk to you about your complete lack of planning and co-ordination with other subjects offered in the Hogwarts curriculum."

He sounded like he believed what he was saying, at least. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Percy Weasley had blindly believed in the Ministry of Magic. Neville would have thought he’d learned from the first time, really.

Luna frowned. "I thought you were here to talk to me about using 'dangerous' creatures. Aren't you part of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? I didn't think they were particularly worried about the education side of things."

Neville laughed. "Are you serious? You're _not_ still the Ministry representative on the Board of Governors, then? Honestly, Percy, you'd think that none of the Departments want you or something, the rate you're moving about."

The look that shot across Percy's face in that first moment suggested that Neville may have struck a chord, and he was immediately sorry for it. He hadn't actually meant anything serious by it.

It was just a joke, he wanted to say. Sorry. But the words stuck in his throat.

So much for feeling better about himself if he spoke up more.

Neville tried to apologise, but Percy merely turned back to Luna and said, "I'll need to talk to you in some degree of privacy, and I can see that won't happen here at Hogwarts. Professor Lovegood, you'll be expected to contact me by owl to make an appointment within the week. And I'll be including this unwillingness to assist in the process in the report. Mr Longbottom, you two may be the happy couple of the week, but you may not come with her. Private interview means _private_."

When Percy walked away, it was with the air of a man just barely clinging to his dignity (or, more correctly, to his punctured but still over-sized ego).

Neville wondered why Percy seemed so sure that Neville was sleeping with anything that walked. It wasn't as if Neville was exactly the poster-boy – poster-man? – for popularity. Fame didn’t always lead to a fabulous love life, after all. If only.

"We're not a couple," Neville called after Percy, just to set the record straight. “That’s the second time you’ve been wrong about that.”

Percy paused for a moment in his tracks as if considering Neville's words, but then he continued walking on without looking back.

That was weird.

Later, Neville realised that for once he hadn't even corrected Neville when he'd called him 'Percy'.

* * *

Neville had to admit that he only didn't really care what the students were saying about his love life until he arrived at his office to find that graffiti was once more coating the walls, this time making reference, among other things, to Luna in a way that really raised Neville's hackles.

From then on, he cared. He wasn't going to stand for it.

"Creevey," Neville called out at the end of class two days later. "Stay behind a moment."

For a moment Neville thought Dennis Creevey would just keep walking in spite of him, but he did eventually roll his eyes and break away from the queue of his fellow students walking out into the open air of the Hogwarts grounds.

"I went to my office between classes yesterday, Mr Creevey, and was quite shocked when I walked inside. Do you know what surprise I found?"

Creevey shook his head sullenly.

"I found graffiti on my wall. Again. This time it was drawing of a very explicit nature and some very serious accusations about my… how did it put it? Oh, yes, 'defiling Junior Death Eaters'. Since I have certainly never behaved inappropriately towards any Death Eaters, and there is certainly no such thing as a 'Junior' Death Eater, particularly in this school, I was quite confused by why someone would have written any of that."

"So?" Creevey muttered. He kicked resentfully at the wall of the greenhouse. Neville refused to comment directly on that ridiculous sullen-teenager behaviour, though he would sorely have liked to.

"So,” Neville said calmly instead, “it's a very serious thing to accuse a professor of such behaviour. The punishment where a student does so with no proof of the claim and even with no belief in its truth would be serious, too. So I'd like to warn you now that if any more graffiti shows up in my office, particularly if the handwriting obviously matches the terrible handwriting I keep coming across in your essays, I might have to take action."

Creevey snorted dismissively and muttered something about points and shoving that Neville didn't quite catch, though he got the drift of it easily enough.

"No, Mr Creevey, I'm finished with House points. Gryffindor hasn't a hope of getting their points into positive numbers, after all, so losing points isn't really a threat, is it?

"However, I might consider writing to parents instead. I think you have forgotten that you are actually one of the luckier ones at this school. You may have lost your brother in the war, which is a terrible thing, but your parents are still both alive and outside Azkaban's overcrowded walls. And yet, unlike some of your fellow students who aren't so lucky but have overcome their hardships, you are here only because your parents wanted you to finish your education, I think. You don't care if you are expelled, do you?"

Dennis said nothing, but Neville could tell by the look on his face that he was right.

"Perhaps you should care, at least, that if you are expelled and go out into the world as angry and destructive as you are now, you will run into trouble. The Ministry will not be as lenient as I have been, or as the rest of your Professors have undoubtedly been. You will be thrown into Azkaban in a heartbeat. Wouldn't your parents be upset if they received word that yet another of their sons had been taken from them?"

Neville knew that it was somewhat cruel to use Colin Creevey's death against his brother in such a way. It made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was the sort of thing Snape might do, after all. But he knew that he couldn't apologise. That was the sort of mistake he would have made when he'd first arrived. It was the sort of thing that would only make the problem worse. What he was doing was necessary, no matter how bad he felt, because it was all there was left for him to do to possibly stop the future he'd predicted for Dennis.

"Do you understand me, Mr Creevey?" he asked.

Dennis nodded rapidly, his eyes wide and a sort of astonished denial painting his features. Clearly the reference to his brother and the threat of imprisonment had both hit their marks.

Dennis looked a little more like the young boy Neville remembered, just for an instant.

They're just such _children_ , Neville realised suddenly. All of them. Some of them might only have been a few years younger than him, but the majority of the students still at Hogwarts had all been too young to have been truly affected by the war. They hadn't been old enough to stay for the final battle staged at Hogwarts, and second-hand reports just didn't have the same impact.

Neville had stayed. Neville had been forever changed by that battle from the moment it erupted. The students had just been changed in a slightly different way, and the change was often more delayed.

They were just children.

Neville bit his lip slightly, looking down on Creevey.

McGonagall was right. Someone needed to _help_ them. They certainly didn’t seem to want to help themselves.

"Fine," Neville said, his voice slightly softened. "Just remember what I said. Dismissed."

As Creevey darted out in the direction the rest of his class had gone, Neville fervently hoped that what he knew he had to do now wouldn't be something he'd regret when all was said and done.

* * *

Professor McGonagall had once told Neville that the only thing standing in his way was his own lack of confidence. It was time that he really did something about that.

"I need to know how to be more like you were when you were a teacher," Neville announced as soon as he walked through the door of McGonagall's office. He'd only had to wait a few hours before she left; he'd wanted to have this conversation in relative privacy, even though he knew the other portraits would probably report it back to her anyway. "Not the unfair, nasty part, so much. I don't want to scare them, if I can avoid it. That's not me. I just want to know… well, whatever it was that gave you respect. What made you tough on us? You were young when you started teaching as well, weren't you?"

"You need to know a lot of things, Longbottom," said Snape's portrait. "I think, however, that we've proven that you are incapable of learning them, especially from me."

"It's in your best interests to talk to me," Neville said.

"Oh? I fail to see how."

Despite his words, Neville thought he had Snape's interest.

"I've threatened a few of the students, which has been effective in stopping them from mocking me outright during class time to a point, but it's not enough. I don't want them to just clam up whenever they see me. The students are still hassling each other, and the Slytherins are being victimised more than most. Your Slytherins are the ones suffering, Professor."

"They are not _my_ Slytherins any more, Longbottom. In case your intellect, or lack thereof, has not been up to the challenge of recognising such a simple fact, I regret to inform you that I am dead. I am not their Head of House anymore. Besides, the Slytherins are capable of looking after themselves, Longbottom. They have always been mistreated, and always will be. They are used to it. They don't need you to be their knight in shining armour. You're more likely than harm them than help them, knowing your tendency to blow up anything even slightly flammable as intimately as I unfortunately do."

Neville forced himself not to feel cowed at Snape's insult. Snape wouldn't help him unless he thought that Neville was worth helping, which meant he really had to _believe_ that Neville had changed.

Fear into bravery, he reminded himself. Fight not flight. It sounded almost like a mantra in his head.

Neville drew a steadying breath and rolled his eyes at Snape. Snape looked more amused than anything, though his smirk slid off his face when Neville spoke again.

"A Slytherin girl – one of the younger years – was nearly sent to Azkaban last year," he said. "She was provoked into letting loose some accidental magic, as far as the teachers can tell. The other child, a Gryffindor, ended up in St Mungo's for a time, and the parents complained to the Ministry when Professor McGonagall didn't expel the girl. She was thirteen years old, and McGonagall had to make a deal for her so that she wouldn't be sent away. She's been mercilessly bullied since then, but McGonagall can't do anything about that either. Her hands are tied.

"Most of them are just as young and confused as they've ever been. Even the real troublemakers are just children in the end, I've realised."

"Brilliant deductive skills," Snape muttered sarcastically. "Right up to the Longbottom par, I think. Was it their lack of height that gave it away?"

Again Neville had to focus on making sure his voice didn't shake. It made it easier to ignore Snape's words.

"If I could make them actually respect me, and listen to me, I could maybe get it through to them that it's got to stop before it gets out of hand. I could find a way other than expelling them and letting the Ministry send them all off to prison one by one to stop them."

Snape sneered, but Neville knew that he must be considering it, for he didn't respond immediately.

"The Ministry is just as bigoted as it ever was, though no one would be willing to admit it, of course," said Snape. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Neville.

Snape eventually nodded, seemingly to himself. Then he looked directly at Neville once more. "I make no promises. You will remember that many of your cohort merely left mocking me for what they thought was outside of my hearing. That is not the kind of respect you'll need."

"That doesn't matter," Neville insisted. "I don't care whether they call me names and stuff." Snape's impressive nose scrunched up slightly in disdain at the use of the words 'and stuff', Neville noticed. "All I what is for them to take my word as law. You were able to do that, even towards the end when everyone thought … well, you know. That's what I need you to teach me."

If Neville didn't know better, he might have thought Snape actually looked slightly pleased at the off-hand comment on his ability to teach and keep order.

"All right. I will…" Snape grimaced, " _help_ you to become passable at asserting what little authority you have over your students. With the Headmistress's permission, you'll come here twice a week until I'm satisfied that either you are no longer as pathetic as you are now, or that you cannot be helped at all. Or until I become so sick of the sight of you that I can't stand to be in your presence. Perhaps both, considering what I have to work with."

"You'll… you'll actually help me?"

"If you can possibly be helped, which I very much doubt," Snape's portrait scoffed.

Neville nodded curtly. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

He turned on his heel, leaving Snape and the other portraits alone together once more.

* * *

Though Neville was starting to learn a little about how to deal with the students after a few sessions with Snape, and was certainly less afraid of standing up to them after having to deal with Snape sniping at him for hours on end, he was still glad when the focus of their attention was taken away from him and Luna a few weeks later by the most recent gossip.

Neville arrived at dinner to find the whole school buzzing. The kerfuffle was apparently, Neville gleaned after several minutes of excited chatter, about Madame Pince's sudden resignation. Much like Hagrid the year before, she'd packed up her things and left the grounds abruptly, rumour had it. No one even knew where she had gone. None of the students seemed to care much, either, which hardly surprised Neville.

The staff, on the other hand, were whispering among themselves at the Head Table about what could have happened to make her suddenly so unhappy at Hogwarts.

"So she just left because she didn't like it here anymore?" Neville asked, dropping his stack of papers on the table in front of him and tossing himself just as unceremoniously into his usual seat.

Sinistra's eyes took on the sort of wide, incredulous look Neville had noticed that she wore whenever there was gossip in the air (which was fairly frequent at Hogwarts).

"It's something of a scandal, really," she whispered. "Not even Christmas before a teacher has run off for the second year in a row. Some of the other staff members are saying the students must have cursed the teaching positions, and we didn't even notice. Perhaps they even did it before the summer; he's been especially lowly since last year sometime. It's a bit of a tragedy. The school's just recovered from the Defence curse, we hardly need another curse that could affect any teacher in any position. We'll never find new staff."

Sinistra liked her fantastical stories, Neville had been quick to realise, but even though they tended to be ninety-nine percent conjured from thin air, there was always a grain of fact hidden in there somewhere.

Neville didn't believe for a second that the students would have cursed the teachers. Generally, he had found that they were more like Snape than they probably realised (and Neville thought that he'd like to see their faces if he ever got the courage to tell them so). They liked to hurt with words, but they would rarely stoop to actual physical action, towards their teachers at least (though the Slytherin victims provided almost daily proof that the students didn't mind banging up their fellows a little). Though the Ministry of Magic refused to expel students under the current circumstances, if the students got so out of hand that they began actually attacking the teachers, the Ministry would have to step up to their responsibility, for once.

Every single student seemed to instinctively know that there was a line that they shouldn't cross unless they wanted to face more than docked points and detentions. Neville didn't think that they'd step over that line just to curse Hagrid, who was very unlikely to have done anything to provoke them.

The grain of truth that Neville decided to take from Sinistra's version of events, then, was that Pince had grown sick of the students running amok in her precious library. Neville wasn't surprised. She'd never seemed particularly _happy_ in her job. Neville was glad that she wasn't, for example, suffering as Professor Sprout had been from the long-term effects of a curse. Since the secret of Neville's predecessor's mysterious disappearance came from McGonagall herself rather than someone less credible like Sinistra, he could at least take _that_ as fact.

"It'll be terribly difficult to find a new librarian," Sinistra complained, "what with how the students have been using the library as some sort of duelling room. Half the shelves have had to be repaired since the school year began, and some more than once, I've heard! Something has to be done."

Neville sighed. For once, Sinistra wasn't really exaggerating.

* * *


	4. Part Four

PART FOUR

Several days before the first Quidditch game of the season – Gryffindor vs. Slytherin – there was still no new librarian. Talk about curses on jobs and the like had nonetheless petered out, though, when the Gryffindor team accused Madame Hooch of bias towards the Slytherin team and made an official complaint to the Ministry.

When the wizard arrivedfrom the Department of Magical Games and Sports, Neville was once more exasperated to see Percy Weasley. This time, however, he rather thought that he might be annoyed on Percy's behalf rather than his own.

After Percy had interviewed the Gryffindor team and Madame Hooch (and completely failed to even approach any of the Slytherins), Neville decided that he couldn't stay quiet about whatever was going on. His meetings with Snape had obviously made him bold. He was perhaps feeling a little too bold, really, if he was running about involving himself in things that were none of his business. He'd have to stop seeing Snape. He never in his whole life had thought that he'd actually be just a little bit disappointed at that thought.

But whatever the reason for his new sense of bravery in the face of danger, Neville couldn't stop himself from not only blocking Percy's escape, but also dragging Percy away to an empty classroom despite the other man's squawking protests.

"You will stop manhandling me now, Mr Longbottom," Percy demanded when Neville closed the door after them, cutting off the sounds of students in the nearby hallways. Neville cast both a strong locking charm and a silencing charm so that the students wouldn't be able to spy on them.

"Did you hear me?" Percy asked. "I'm on official business for the Ministry, and I demand that you let me leave."

"Just hear me out," Neville said. Percy glared at him, but remained silent, and Neville took that as a sign that he could continue unimpeded.

"You don't like Quidditch," Neville said. Percy tried to speak but Neville waved his hand to interrupt him before he even begun. "Look, just let me say this. You were the only Weasley in pretty much forever not to play on the House Quidditch team. You spent most of the games studying your textbooks in the stands rather than watching the action. And you don't like other games either, as far as I know. So I can only guess that you were put in the Department of Magical Games and Sports against your will.

"If the Ministry are shuffling you between Departments because they don't want you there, why don't you just leave?"

Percy might once have taken that opportunity to loom over him, but after Neville had spent so long in Snape's company recently it wouldn't have fazed him anyway. Perhaps Percy sensed that, and so refrained.

"I'll have you know that the Ministry aren't trying to get rid of me at all,” Percy huffed. “I'm a very valued employee. I work hard and I'm loyal and I'm versatile."

It was one of the few occasions upon which Neville had seen Percy look truly flustered.

"Then why the hell do you keep changing Departments? I keep running into you, and you're never in the same job or even the same area of work twice. It's ridiculous, Percy, and you could do so much better."

"Don't tell me what I can do. And... and…"

"And I shouldn't call you ‘Percy’, right?" Neville scoffed. "Because you're on 'official business'. You're always on official business, but the thing is, it never feels very official. You never call me by my proper title either. I'm always 'Mr Longbottom' to you, but I'm actually 'Professor Longbottom' now. You'll even call Luna, who you obviously don't respect, by her title, but not me. I think you just want to show me you have power over me by distancing yourself or reducing my position or some other macho crap. Whatever. Do what you like. But you might as well call me Neville while you're at it, and I might as well call you Percy, because _then_ when you target me at least it'll feel as personal as it obviously is."

"Mr Longbottom –"

"Neville!" he insisted. "God, Percy, what the hell is your problem?"

He didn't really expect Percy to kiss him. If he was honest, that was about the last thing in the world he expected. Had shoving your lips against someone else’s become an accepted practice for getting them to shut up while he’d been out of the country or something? Neville really thought that someone might have informed him of that.

He'd never have even thought that Percy was bent – or, at least, that he would in any way _admit_ to himself that he was gay – because Percy was about as straight-laced as they came. He'd also thought that Percy hated him, though he'd never been sure why. He would have been less surprised to have Percy hit him again at that moment than to instead feel the press of their lips together.

It was unexpected, but Neville wasn't entirely sure that it was unwanted.

Percy pulled away for a moment. "Neville," he said, and Neville started slightly at the sound of his name in Percy's voice.

Neville found himself leaning back in for another kiss only to find himself being pushed away.

"This isn't going to happen again," Percy said.

Neville blinked and then frowned, suddenly realising where he was and that it was _Percy Weasley_ he'd been attached to by the lips. "What the heck was that?" he asked stupidly.

"That was something that was completely wrong and that will never be repeated."

"But Percy… Lord, I… I would have sworn up and down that you hated me. You're always putting me down and getting in my way. You're always _there_ , every time I turn around there you are, and if I didn't know better I'd think that you were actually purposely following me or something…"

Neville had meant to say more, but Percy cut him off.

"My work life is none of your business. Nor is anything to do with me your business. As far as I'm concerned, this never happened. I mean, I'm not… not even _like_ you."

When Percy stormed off, Neville was left behind was a look of pure shock on his face.

So Percy was homophobic, even though he himself was obviously gay. It was no wonder he'd been acting like a prat to Neville. Obviously he didn't know how else to act.

It was terribly sad, really. And, as with many things in life, Neville had no idea what to do about it.

* * *

Neville asked around about Percy after that, but he didn't try to actually contact him. He heard through gossip that Percy had been transferred back to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and he was glad. Percy and the law were just a perfect match, really. Neville would certainly rather see him there than stuck in some Quidditch-related job that he obviously hated.

When Harry showed up for a guest lecture in the Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s class and stopped off to see Neville, the last thing Neville expected was for Harry to frown at him and ask, "What did you do?"

"Uh, what?" Neville asked, utterly confused.

"To Percy? One day he's fairly happy even though he's in a job that I can't believe he agreed to take, the next he's miserable and begging for a transfer back to a different department. At first I thought he'd had some sort of high expectations for the job or something, though I could hardly believe that considering it was Quidditch and he’s… well, _Percy_. But then Ginny said she'd heard you took him aside while he was here at Hogwarts and by the time he surfaced he was upset beyond repair. Which is a funny way to describe it, actually, since I doubt that anyone could expect to repair Percy no matter how upset he was, but... anyway, not the point,” Harry cut himself off.

"Look, I know you think he's a prick, but he's actually a somewhat decent guy, if you can get past the broomstick jammed up where the sun don't shine. He's just…"

"A pigtail puller?" Neville suggested quietly.

Harry frowned. "Is that the new slang for gay? Because if I'd known that you knew that about him then I wouldn't have had to try to dance around it all this time, would I? Not that it's not obvious; even I figured it out, right?"

Neville laughed, probably for the first time in days. "Um, no. It doesn't mean gay. And if I didn't already know that Percy was gay, then I'm pretty sure you would have just given it away with your brilliant subtlety just now. Luckily, it's hard to miss that a bloke is gay when he goes and kisses you out of the blue."

Harry looked taken aback. "He… Wow. _Percy_? Seriously? And then, what, you turned him down?"

Neville shrugged. "That's the thing. I might have done if I'd actually been given the chance to, since he's an annoying prat most times. But then again, maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe, if he'd let me get two words in, we could have figured out whatever the heck was going on. But I didn't get a chance to say one way or the other. He was too busy saying that he couldn't do it and whatever. But then why did he kiss me in the first place? God, and I thought I didn't understand _girls_."

"So Percy's only miserable because he's emotionally stunted?" Harry mused. “This doesn’t surprise me.”

"That's about it. I think maybe that, now that I’ve been clued in, just about the only person who actually spends any time around him who _doesn't_ know that Percy's gay is Percy. He can't accept it."

"You really didn't do anything?" Harry asked, sounding every so slightly disbelieving. As if Neville had it in him to hurt someone like that. Why did people keep assuming that he went around helping his friends cheat on their significant others or somehow hurting people he’d know since starting school? Did he _look_ like a bad person?

"Not that I know of," Neville said. "But then, who knows when you're talking about a guy who thinks that making my life hell is the way to show affection."

"Right. Well." Harry grimaced, looking embarrassed. "Sorry I accused you. I should have known, really. Everyone knows that the Weasley men have the emotional ranges of teaspoons, to quote Hermione, and Percy's just about the worst of all of them. Which is saying something, next to Ron."

"You could maybe… um, never mind."

"What?" Harry asked, looking concerned.

"Well, if you happened to see Percy,” Neville said, “and he looked like he wouldn't take your head off for bringing it up, you could possibly mention to him that, uh, that the next time we run into each other for ‘official business’, I'd be all right with it if he wanted to talk.”

Harry looked uncertain. "Uh, sure. You do know that if you get together you two are going to be the weirdest communicators on the planet, right?"

Neville shrugged good-naturedly. "Yeah, well, I think I'm finally beginning to understand Percy Weasley. A bit. I don’t think I’ll ever quite fully _get_ him. He is, after all, Percy."

* * *

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, Mr Longbottom, but I just can't allow you in."

Neville stared at the Trainee Healer, agape. The man could have been speaking another language for all the sense he was making to Neville.

"Look, I was allowed to come all the way up here. I can physically see my mother not twenty feet away. Why can't I just go in?"

"It isn't allowed. By order of the Ministry, you have no privileges to visit any patients within St Mungo's."

"Look, check again," he said. "I was here just last week without any problems."

"I'm sorry," the man repeated, "but whatever you were last week, you're on the restricted list _now_. That means no access to St Mungo's patients in a visitor's capacity unless accompanied by a designated Ministry official."

"The Ministry's hardly going to hold my hand while I go in and see my parents, are they? Especially seeing as how they're the ones who put me on your list to begin with."

"I'm sorry, but –"

"Stop saying that," Neville said shortly. "I know that you're just trying to be reassuring, but if you actually were sorry then you'd be helping me."

"I'd like to," the Trainee Healer said quietly, "but I can't make a career as a Healer if the Ministry has me fired before I'm even trained."

Neville pinched the bridge of his nose. It was just a typical day struggling with the Ministry of Magic, purveyors of frustration and despair. Business as usual, really. Only now they'd taken away his right to see his parents, and who knew what other privileges. It had gone too far.

"Who do I have to speak to?" he asked.

The Trainee Healer frowned. "I'm sorry?"

Neville grit his teeth, wondering whether the man ever said anything else. A compulsion to apologise for everything couldn't be a good quality in a Healer.

"Who do I have to see at the Ministry? Who regulates the list?"

The Trainee looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm afraid I can't help you there, either. It's information I'm not authorised to give out."

"Oh, for…" Neville half-growled, and grabbed at the clipboard the Healer in Training had been referring to when telling him that he was on the restricted list. They wrestled with the board for a moment before Neville, who'd never been very good with physical confrontation, ended up planted flat on his back on the ground. A moment later he was scooped up by an annoyed looking security witch, who brandished her wand threateningly at Neville and all but led him out by the ear.

None of that mattered though, because Neville had still managed to see the signature at the bottom of the latest version of the restriction list. He smiled grimly.

* * *

The wizarding world was damaged, the _Daily Prophet_ proclaimed. The war had torn the very fabrics of the magical world apart. Only the combined efforts of the heroes of the war (an embarrassed Harry Potter rolled his eyes and forced a smile at the reader from the otherwise carefully-posed picture splashed across the front page) could possibly hope to put it back together again.

Neville snorted and threw the morning paper aside, not much caring whether it fell into his bowl of cereal. Of course the wizarding world was falling apart. Any idiot could see that. Anywhere where the government wouldn't let a man have contact with his own parents just because they _could_ was hardly the epitome of perfect society, was it? But really, Neville was starting to see that it was no better or worse than it had ever been, when it came right down to it.

However much the Ministry might be _trying_ to rebuild itself into something better, it was, in essentials, very much as it had been before the war had outright commenced. And the _Daily Prophet_ , however much they might bemoan the Ministry's current state in theory, wasn't particularly advocating change in a practical sense, either.

The 'heroes of the war' had been striving to improve the magical government – to put the magical world back together, as the paper would have it – for two long years already. Breaking headlines indeed.

The biggest problem with the Prophet's reports were that what they saw as the way to make the wizarding world a better place after the war – namely, the zero tolerance regime – was actually the thing that was making everything go to hell.

The fact that such _groundbreaking_ news was featured on the front page in that morning's paper did little to tempt Neville into reading the rest of the paper, for it would likely be all downhill from there.

Annoyed, Neville picked the newspaper back up and flicked to the obituaries. He'd grown used to reading them when the deaths were regular occurrences even among people his own age. He had yet to fall out of the habit.

"I always read them, too."

Neville glanced up to see Luna hovering over his shoulder.

"Hey Luna," he greeted. "Take a seat."

She smiled almost patronisingly. "I can't sit there," she said. "I'm standing here to make sure no one else sits there either. It's not safe." She gestured up to the ceiling, where Neville saw there was mistletoe suspended from the sky, or rather from the roof which was reflecting the outside sky. "Full of Nargles," she told him conspiratorially. "They jump down on people when they get emotional, and they can be rather nasty. In fact, you're almost under it as well. You should move. They tend to have large claws, you know."

Neville imagined small vicious creatures raining down from the mistletoe on unsuspecting couples who were kissing under it and only smiled half-heartedly. He was unable to bring himself to be as amused by Luna's fantastical theories as he usually was. "I'll take my chances," he said

Luna didn't further comment, but she also didn't move any closer herself.

"Did you know that the Headmistress still hasn't found anyone willing to take on the librarian job?" Sinistra asked from the other side of him.

"It's haunted, don't you know?" Luna said. "People are afraid of it."

"I think you mean cursed, not haunted; ghosts don't haunt jobs, and no librarian has died while in the position for centuries." Neville turned around to see Hermione Granger standing there with her hands on her hips. She continued, "And it's not cursed either. Madame Pince left because, I have it on good authority, the students are horrors. The rest of the staff might follow before long, but it won't be because of some stupid curse."

"Hermione!" Neville exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I've a meeting with Professor McGonagall, but I came early so I could check up on things. I miss Hogwarts."

She sat down beside Neville before Luna could warn her about the apparently very high probability that she would be attacked by clawed mistletoe-dwelling creatures for daring to sit in that particular spot. Of course, being Hermione, she wouldn't have listened to a word of it anyway.

"The Defence Against the Dark Arts job was cursed," Sinistra said as if there had been no interruption to that line of conversation. She was very one-track, Sinistra.

Neville snorted. "Yes, well, that was Voldemort, wasn't it?" Sinistra flinched. "Somehow I don't think he wanted to be a librarian quite as much as he wanted the Dark Arts position."

"But it means that it's _possible_ for a job to be cursed."

"It's possible," Hermione admitted. "But I don't think that one person leaving their job after more than a decade and with no one having problems holding the job before that really points to a curse, do you? Honestly, if you hear hoof beats out in the Muggle world, are you going to think horse or centaur?"

"She'll probably think Hippogriff, more like," Neville muttered to Hermione. "The more outrageous, the better."

Hermione hid a laugh behind her hand. Sinistra seemed to catch it anyway and huffed in annoyance, turning away pointedly and thereby putting an abrupt end to the conversation.

"So what sort of meeting does a rights activist have with the Headmistress of Hogwarts?"

"Just the sort of meeting you wouldn't approve of, from what I hear. I'm here on behalf of the Ministry as an impartial mediator. There's to be to discussions about the Headmistress's apparently lax discipline of misbehaving students. Some of the parents have complained." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course, I've seen evidence that the children whose parents are complaining aren't the ones whose children are being most targeted."

"Nor would they be parents of the worst behaved students either, I'd say," Neville added bitterly. "All of their parents tend to have either died in the war or been imprisoned by the Ministry under their new policy. It would be funny that the Ministry doesn't see the connection if it wasn't so sad. And frustrating."

Hermione bit her lip and lowered her voice. "Between us, the higher-ups at the Ministry are ignoring the evidence that their mass imprisonment is causing crime more than abating it. People are bitter about it and they rebel, just as your students here are doing, and the Ministry won't stand for that. They think everyone who speaks out against them is going to become the next Voldemort. Those of us who are high-profile after the war, like you and I – and especially Harry, though he won't listen to me about this – have to keep our heads down especially so they don't try to make examples out of us."

Neville snorted. "As I learned. Azkaban sure was nice at that time of year."

Hermione shot him a pitying look. "Well, hopefully it won't happen again. I may be keeping ‘out of sight, out of mind’ as much as I can, but I'm not giving up on making a difference. The Ministry only sent me here because Headmistress McGonagall demanded a neutral party, you know, but I'm not really all that neutral. I imagine that the Ministry representative they send won't know what hit her. Or him, I suppose."

"Ministry official, eh? No, I don't think he will see what hit him," Neville agreed, a sly smile spreading slowly across his face.

Hermione seemed to realise the time and quickly excused herself to go to her meeting. Neville was left behind, caught up in his own thoughts.

* * *

"I thought it would be you."

Neville was leaning against the wall of the hallway when Percy Weasley emerged from behind the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmistress's office.

Percy looked at him for long enough for Neville to see the shock in his eyes, but then he turned his face away and tried to continue down the corridor as if he hadn't seen Neville there at all. However, Neville, though he may not have been the most co-ordinated wizard in Britain, was quick enough to grasp the arm of Percy's robes and tug slightly so that Percy had to at least slow down. Thankfully, he chose to stop entirely.

"Hermione mentioned to me a Ministry official would be coming,” Neville said. “Seeing as how you've been in every other Ministry position imaginable, including several I had no idea even existed, I figured that with my luck it would probably be you again. So you apparently end up wherever I am even when you're trying to avoid me rather than trying to follow me."

"Were you _waiting_ for me?" Percy asked, looking irritated.

"Yes,” Neville said plainly. “I wanted to know why you put me on the restricted list at St Mungo's."

If Percy had looked shocked to see Neville, now he looked completely floored.

"How did you know it was –"

"I saw your signature, Percy!" Neville exclaimed. He drew in a deep breath and calmed himself. He'd decided well before Percy had actually arrived at the school that day that he wasn't going to get anywhere with him if both their tempers were flared. Normally Neville would just accept getting nowhere with Percy as a foregone conclusion, but today… it was his _parents_. "Sorry," he said more quietly. "It's just that I know you wrote to the Ministry to tell them to keep me out."

Neville could see, though, that his outburst had already had its unwanted effect of putting Percy well on his guard. Percy glowered at him and sniffed importantly, and Neville knew he was suddenly looking at Percy's usual brick-wall official persona.

"That was classified paperwork, Mr Longbottom. Who showed it to you?"

"Oh, leave it alone, Percy, that's not even the point. You can't just lock me out of St Mungo's."

Percy raised an eyebrow. " _I_ haven't done anything, Longbottom," he said shortly. "I was acting in my capacity as a Ministry official, so you'll have to take it up with the department."

"Which you don't even belong to anymore, right?" Neville said bitterly. Things would be so much easier if Percy could just hold down the one job for two days straight. He nearly said so aloud, even, but he still had the presence of mind that he could see the look on Percy's face at just the implication. He realised that rubbing Percy’s face in it even more would be a very _bad idea_.

"Don't make this personal," Percy said. "Not everything is about you."

"Oh, I think _this_ is most definitely about me. It didn't seem to matter that I was a convicted criminal all the times I went to St Mungo's since appearing before the Wizengamot. But then we had… well, whatever happened between us happened, and now you're trying to get back at me, or to prove that you don't like me or whatever –"

"It isn't about you," Percy insisted. "I’m only trying to do my job, and do it _right_. It's Ministry policy, and it has to be upheld."

"Oh, sod Ministry policy," Neville burst out.

Percy's only acknowledgment that Neville had actually spoken was an unimpressed glare.

"The only reason you weren't already on the list was because the person who had previously managed it before I joined the department was incompetent,” Percy said. “And it hardly even matters anyway. You're only on the restricted visitor's list, just like every other convicted criminal in the wizarding world. You haven't been 'locked out' of St Mungo's – if you showed up there with, say, your nose Splinched off, I'm quite certain they'd treat you."

Neville had been taught his whole life to be proud of who his parents were, and what they'd done for the wizarding world, but Neville was still distinctly uncomfortable discussing it with Percy Weasley in an open hallway. He lowered his voice significantly so that Percy would almost have to lean in towards him just to make out the words. "I can't see my parents, though. I don't know what the point of restricting me from visiting people in St Mungo's is, since I'd be just as much of a danger to the students here as I am to any of them, but –"

"You _are_ a danger to the students, Mr Longbottom,” Percy agreed. “But after the Dolores Umbridge fiasco a few years ago, the Ministry withdrew almost all of its power to govern the teaching appointments at Hogwarts. The only check that remains is one Ministry-sponsored position on the Board of Governors."

Neville stared at him for a moment, agape. "You've tried to have me removed, haven't you? That's why you're here right now, I bet."

For the first time since he'd met him, Neville thought he could see that Percy looked a little uncomfortable. That was answer enough.

"Merlin, I can't _believe_ you! Do you really hate me this much? What’d I ever do to you that’s worth all of _this_?"

"I don't answer to you, Mr Longbottom," Percy said.

Percy tried to pull away, but Neville grabbed him more firmly to stop him from getting away before Neville had said what he'd been wanting to say.

Neville wasn't quite sure how between that moment and the next he ended up being ravished atop Flitwick's low-set desk. He was pretty certain that all he'd done was grab Percy by the arm and pull him out of the hallway to find somewhere a little more private to continue talking. Or arguing. Or whatever.

And he'd also failed to remove his hand from Percy's arm and said Percy's name, Neville thought he remembered. Now he said it again with more feeling.

"Uhh, Percy."

Percy claimed his lips again and bucked against him so hard that the desk skidded back slightly across the stone floor. Percy's glasses dug into Neville's face uncomfortably, then in a moment they were gone, flung across the room by Percy himself, whom Neville could never have imagined treating his property in such a cavalier manner until then. It was a relief that Percy might actually be a little less fastidious in sex.

And it was rather hot, actually, seeing him lose control of himself even as he tried to claim some amount of control over Neville.

Neville grabbed Percy's hair and pulled their mouths closer together until the grind of their lips hurt. That was just as well, since he wanted to feel it. He wanted to have something to remember in case Percy once again ran away as if Neville were a giant three-headed dog snapping at his heels.

Percy wrapped one hand around the back of Neville's neck, presumably to keep him still, and then proceeded to shower tiny nipping kisses all over Neville's face. When Neville tried to raise his head to capture Percy's lips properly once again, Percy tightened his grip slightly to keep him in place so that his neck almost but didn't quite hurt. He found he liked the sensation more than he would have expected.

"Oh, Merlin. I don't want this, but I _want_ this. I want to touch you all over," Percy muttered. "I've spent months thinking about licking behind your knee, the indent at the small of your back, every last inch of skin on your body that I've never seen except through your robes, and Merlin but I've wanted it."

Then he let Neville go and he was finally able to kiss Percy again the way he wanted.

Percy, unfortunately, broke away after the too short – it would always be too short – exploration that was his tongue running along Neville's teeth.

"I wanted to touch you until you begged, but I can't _wait_."

Neville understood exactly what he meant. It had been too damn long for him to possibly resist the lure of finally having real, proper _sex_ again, even putting the endlessly building frustration with Percy in particular aside for a moment.

Their stripping wasn't slow and torturous, like Percy had wanted. Percy didn't get to lick every inch of skin as it was uncovered, as he had wanted. Neville didn't even beg like Percy had wanted, not quite. But Neville liked to think that his hand wrapping around Percy's suddenly unclothed erection probably felt as good to Percy at that moment as anything that he'd imagined he'd wanted.

Neville, personally, would really have wanted Percy to thrust up inside him more than anything. However, it seemed that he didn't want it quite enough to break through the feverish thrusting and caressing long enough to locate his wand and cast the necessary spells. Percy came in his hand long before he could have hoped to pull himself together enough for that, and Neville found himself following after Percy not long after, thrusting against Percy's thigh and crying out his release.

That was when Neville discovered that while they got along perfectly well while they were working towards a common goal during sex, apparently that didn’t mean that the post-coital discussion was any less confrontational than the talk that had led to the sex in the first place. Unfortunately, Neville sensed that the argument that erupted probably wouldn't lead to a second go-round.

"Do you actually like working at the Ministry?" Neville asked.

Even as he said it, he knew it was going to cause trouble. It wasn't so much the words as the tone of voice he'd used. He sort of wished he could have taken it back, then.

"Of course I do," Percy said indignantly, pulling away from him. "What, did you think that I took the job back when I was eighteen and you were, what, twelve, just so that I could use it to get close to you when you'd grown up?" Percy retrieved his underwear and trousers and hurriedly began dressing. "I can't believe I did this," he muttered as he tugged his clothing on.

He glared at Neville in an unfocused way, since his glasses were still missing in action. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be absolutely certain you knew who you were, and then having all of that thrown out the window when you realise that this person – this _man_ – you would never have expected to be attracted to is all you can think about?"

"Yes," Neville replied. "What, did you think I was born with the knowledge that I was gay?"

"But I dated Penelope for two years!" Percy whined, as if that would change anything. "I dated a girl and I thought I loved her. And… Merlin, I can't have this conversation when I can't even see you properly."

"It doesn't change who you are," Neville murmured. "You're still Percy Weasley, the same man you always were. Except now you know you like men. So what?"

Percy rolled his eyes, which were now once again covered by the horn-rimmed spectacles he'd just discovered.

"You wouldn't understand because you don't work at the Ministry," Percy laughed humourlessly. "It's about _appearances_. I'm not the same because people won't think of me the same, and that's all that really matters in the end. You think you understand everything about everything, but you don't even understand how fine the line you're walking is. You and Harry are two of a kind. You don't care about what the Ministry of Magic thinks of you, and for a while it makes you seem brave and smart when you stand up to it. Really, though, you're going to do something completely stupid and get arrested. And then …"

And then Percy would have lost something. Typical Percy. He didn't want to get attached to Neville because he was sure he would lose him, but he was so desperate to keep from getting hurt that he couldn't see how much he was hurting Neville and return, and himself as well in the end.

"If you're that worried, leave the Ministry," Neville advised. "Help me instead of working against me. You've done it before, when it became clear that the Ministry was corrupt. You did the right thing then. You can do it again now."

"Just because you believe in it, you think that makes it _right_. As if your course of action is automatically the best,” Percy scoffed. “The Ministry is doing all it can to prevent the wizarding world coming to any further harm, either from dark wizards or Muggles who have realised that we exist and want to control us. Why can't _it_ be right?"

"It's not, Percy," Neville said. "Surely you can see that it's not. They're ignoring everything except crime, and they're seeing crime where there is none. It's out of hand. If it doesn't stop soon there'll be nothing left of the magical world to regulate. There'll be no Ministry because the only governance we'll need will be prison guards at Azkaban.

"We have to stop it. There are so many people who disagree with it. If we just stood up to the Minister of Magic and the others supporting the policy _together_ , we could stop it. You could help Percy, it's not too late."

Percy's eyes narrowed. "You're talking about a coup. Overthrow the Minister and, what, take power yourself? Neville Longbottom, Minister of Magic. From the people, for the people, is that it? I should report you to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Who, I'll remind you, happens to be my superior. I'm putting my career at risk just being here with you."

"That's the real reason you didn't want this to happen," Neville accused. "You're not even really scared of being gay, are you? You just don't want to risk your cushy Ministry job."

Percy scowled. "Believe what you want."

Neville couldn't quite work out, then, whether he was sad to see him go.

* * *

Neville tried to put Percy out of his mind. Percy was a git who didn't deserve his attention, Neville told himself. He wasn't exactly surprised when it didn't work. Even if he kept telling himself Percy was a complete and utter dick – which, to be fair, he actually wasn't (not _always_ , at least) – Neville would actually find himself reflecting on how much of a git Percy _was_ , which wasn't conducive at all to getting the git in question out of his mind.

He tried instead to concentrate on the students, who needed every ounce of thought and effort Neville possessed if he was going to actually help them. And he really did want to help them. He'd been desperate, in fact, to help them ever since he'd found a crying fifth-year girl on the floor of the library.

Ever since Madame Pince had (figuratively) cursed all the students to hell and then up and left, the library had only been open during limited hours and all of the Professors, Neville included, had been filling in as librarian in shifts. Neville had been trapped in there with the little monsters for two hours, with yet another hour still to go before his shift ended (it was almost enough to make him as wrinkled and bitter as Pince in just that small amount of time, he would swear), when he heard the sobbing sound and followed it back into the stacks.

The girl was curled on the floor in a nook, clearly trying to read through her tears.

"Is everything all right?" Neville asked. Of course, then he felt like the biggest fool on the planet, because of course everything wasn't all right. The O.W.L.s were too many months away to cause mental breakdowns quite yet, and teenage girls didn't otherwise usually break into tears while researching how to turn a quill into an armchair.

Luckily, the girl didn't pick up on how awkward he was being.

"My sister was sent to Azkaban," she whispered. "I got the letter this morning. For performing Magic in front of my mum, can you believe it? It's as bad as the year I couldn't come to school because I was a Muggle-born. My parents hid me away in the Muggle world, but if the Ministry had really looked for me I wouldn't have been able to hide. There's no hiding from them now, either. They’re everywhere. They know _everything_."

Neville had never been good at comforting people. He was always awkward about it, probably because his Gran had been just as awkward with it when it came to him. And what was he to say? He could empathise with her. He could tell her that the Ministry had effectively taken his family away from him as well, but even if he could bring himself to say it, it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't matter to her, not really. Nothing short of getting her sister back for her would help.

And so that was exactly what was going to happen, Neville decided. Screw the Ministry.

"We're going to fix this," Neville said. It was the most confident he'd sounded since the war.

The girl – Neville still couldn't for the life of him think of her name, even though she was in his fifth-year Herbology class – looked up at him in question.

"The 'no tolerance' laws," Neville clarified. "We're going to find a way to get rid of them, and then all the people like your sister who don't deserve to be in Azkaban will be able to go free. We'll fix this. I promise."

Neville wasn't certain the girl was as confident in his abilities as he himself was at that moment, but it didn't really matter. It didn't matter what anyone thought of him, because when Neville Longbottom was determined – really determined – to finally _do something_ , the only person he needed to believe in him was himself.

For once, he really _did_.

The only way to help the students in the long run was to shut down the Ministry's over-policing and make sure that those people who'd been sentenced to Azkaban who'd committed only very minor offences were set free. Hopefully then some amount of order would be restored and the Headmistress would no longer have such pressure to dish out extreme punishments. Neville certainly hoped that they didn't have to start expelling students, even though it was difficult to believe some of them had made it this far in the first place. But, as Snape had said during one of their recent 'tutoring' sessions, sometimes people had to do things they didn't necessarily want to do during war. And what was teaching, but a war against the students?

Neville wasn't sure he believed that last part in general – they might annoy the hell out of him sometimes, but he didn’t hate the students anything like as much as Snape did – but in the current Hogwarts atmosphere in particular it was actually somewhat apt.

As the girl was packing her book away and pulling herself together, having wiped the remnants of her tears off her face, Neville suddenly frowned, suddenly putting together something the girl had said with other things he had heard recently.

They know everything, she'd said.

"How old is your sister?" Neville asked.

The girl frowned at him. "Twenty-six," she replied. "She said she went to school at the same time as you, but she was in Hufflepuff and was several years older, so you probably wouldn't know her, if that's what you were wondering."

"No, that's not why I'm asking," Neville said. Then he sprung up from his crouched position and left the library, forgetting all about how upset the girl was for that moment.

He finally was starting to understand the inner workings of the Ministry.

Percy would be proud. If the two of them weren’t at each other’s throats, at least.

* * *

The second time he helped to overthrow an oppressive regime, Neville made certain to remain well and truly out of the spotlight. Very little good came of fame, after all.

Besides, the constant hounding of the press was part of the reason Neville had lost some of the precious confidence he'd discovered in himself during that last year of war. He didn’t look forward to going through that again, ever.

When Neville had started putting things together, he'd done the only thing he could think to do when taking on the Minister of Magic and his many lackeys.

He'd fire-called Hermione Granger.

Hermione, being possibly the smartest witch of her generation, had not taken quite as long as Neville to clue in on the fact that people like the crying girl's sister were being arrested for using magic in their own homes. These were people who weren't underage, and so weren't still under the Trace. Which all meant that there clearly was some type of illegal surveillance scheme in place.

Hermione, however, had been unable to prove the existence of such a magic-tracing spell. She hadn't had as much information as Neville had.

Before calling Hermione, Neville had contacted the Australian Department of Magic, who had informed him that they hadn't relayed the details of his incident to the British Ministry of Magic, but rather that the Ministry had contacted _them_ to enquire about it. That meant that the Ministry must have been monitoring his use of magic even when he was outside the country.

Of course, the fact that the Ministry had known about his activities without being told when he was in Antarctica meant that the Ministry had somehow placed spells on him in particular rather than the area of Britain generally; he'd been halfway around the world, after all.

Hermione had been working on the assumption that the spell was geographical rather than personal, which would have been much harder to track since it could have been cast anywhere, anytime. Neville's information on this point, she'd said, was a wonderful starting point.

Neville also provided one other piece of information that Hermione deemed to be inestimably helpful. Though Hermione already knew that the Ministry had automatic cameras set up (she'd discussed it with McGonagall, who had put the idea in Neville's head to begin with), she had been unable to track them due to the over-abundance of magic inside the Ministry interfering with the spell. However, Neville remembered where he'd been when he'd hit Percy inside the Ministry, which meant that if he showed Hermione she could use the angling of the photo in the paper to extremely narrow down the position of that camera.

She'd explained to him that the Ministry, apparently unable to place any surveillance inside the school, was apparently leaning on McGonagall to report any illegal use of magic to the Ministry representative on the Board of Governors, or to the Minister himself, and to expel any misbehaving students.

"No wonder McGonagall's been refusing to properly punish the students," Neville had mused. "She always did like to kick her heels in. Remember when Umbridge fired Trelawney?"

In the end, once Hermione and Harry (whose face was once again all over the newspaper as if he'd done all the work, not that either Neville or Hermione really minded) had done a little extra legwork and uncovered some evidence, they'd brought the story to light and cast doubt about the Minister of Magic.

And then Ministry workers who had played their part in the illegal side of the zero tolerance policy had come out of the woodwork, and stories of how Minister Burnstein had been an Unspeakable and had brought all sorts of morally-ambiguous magical experiments with him out of the Department of Mysteries, including a Registration system that didn't require trace spells to be actually cast separately on all individuals. Neville never really understood how the whole thing worked, except that Hermione said the magic was vaguely similar to that required to create a Taboo.

What Neville _did_ know for sure was that a number of high-ranking and even lesser Ministry employees were implicated. The Wizengamot would have its work cut out, trying to weed through who it could be proved had actually played a part in the planning and implementation without being under duress from fear of losing their jobs.

The Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department was not implicated. Harry complained about this every time Neville saw him over the following few weeks (which was a lot of times, considering how busy the whole scandal had made everyone, even a lowly Professor like Neville). Harry really hated that man, he'd said, and he'd been so damn certain he’d been in on it.

However, more importantly to Neville, Percy Weasley wasn't implicated either. For all that he'd claimed to know more about the Ministry than Neville (and he hadn't really been wrong at that point), he'd had no knowledge of this.

Neville found that he was inordinately happy about that. Perhaps it was true that not all that long ago he wouldn't have been, but that was before St Mungo's had sent him an owl apologising for removing him from the premises and stating that he was no longer restricted from visiting patients. When Neville had commented to Hermione how quickly that policy had been repealed when the Ministry's regime had been exposed, she'd merely frowned and informed him that as far as she knew it was still in place, and still held more or less the same list of people. So clearly that meant that Neville's name had been individually removed from the list.

The only person who would have reason to know that Neville was listed and who also might have reason to consider removing him from it was undoubtedly Percy. Of course, considering Percy wasn't even part of the department that dealt with security and such anymore, he would have had to have gone to the relevant person and made a case for Neville to be taken off the list. Which meant that Percy was actually capable of admitting that he was wrong. And that he was willing to defend Neville.

If Percy Weasley admitting a mistake didn't call for sorting out their differences, Neville didn't know what would.

"Don't say it," Percy said as soon as he opened the door to his apartment and saw Neville standing there.

"Say what?" Neville inquired.

"Don't rub it in. I know that you were right. You know that you were right. That should be enough. Don't say anything to make me feel worse about it, please."

Apparently Neville had been right. Percy certainly seemed to have improved at admitting he was wrong. Probably because he'd had so much practice at being wrong lately, but Neville knew better than to say anything of the sort.

"I don't really want to say anything about the Ministry," Neville lied. "I want to talk about us."

Percy sighed in exasperation, but he let Neville inside. "There is no 'us'," he said.

"But there could be," said Neville. "There _should_ be. We like each other, when we're not jumping down each others' throats or playing at fisticuffs. Whatever problems that _might_ bring one day in the future because other people don't like it shouldn't matter now. We can't plan for a future we don't know will ever come true, or nothing good will ever happen now."

"You sound like a fortune out of one of those Muggle cracker things," Percy said.

Neville rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. But you know what I mean, right? We can do this. We can take it as it comes. This could be one of the best things that's ever happened to either of us; it doesn't have to be the worst."

"It feels like the worst," Percy muttered.

"Except when we're having sex, right, because that was brilliant," Neville said with a grin. Then he couldn't believe he'd actually said it out loud.

Both men simultaneously went dark red with embarrassment, but while Neville burst into nervous laughter, Percy just turned his head away so that his face was somewhat shielded.

"Why would you even want me?" he asked softly.

Neville shook his head ruefully. "Damn if I know why I want you. I don't know why you want me either. We're so different, but somehow I feel like that's what could make it _work_ , if we ever stopped actively fighting it. It won't be easy. You're completely impossible, of course," Neville said with a smirk. "We'll probably argue every two seconds, and sometimes we'll both be insecure about ourselves and each other. But I think we could make a go of this anyway. Now that it seems a little less likely that I'm to be carted off to Azkaban at any moment, at least."

"What if we get sick of each other?" Percy asked. "What if we find that we can't _stop_ fighting?"

"Believe it or not, I think I’m actually starting to _like_ fighting with you. It’s got to be one of those recognised signs of insanity or whatever, but there it is. And you know what? We just need to take things as they come. One day at a time, and damn the consequences."

"Just like Gryffindors, really," Percy said, deadpan.

And while they were perhaps two of the most unlikely Gryffindors ever to be sorted into that House, Neville knew that each of them had really ended up _fitting_ into their House in their own ways. Neville found it easier to be brave for other people than for himself. He could be brave for Percy, if only Percy could use some of his dogged stubbornness to fight for their relationship.

"And, of course, if we really do keep fighting, we can always shut each other up when it gets to be too much," Neville said, and leaned in to kiss Percy again. "That seemed to work well before. And it'll make for brilliant make-up sex," he added.

"Well," said Percy eventually, blushing once more. "Well, then."

"And, you know, it'll give you a brilliant excuse to say to hell with the Ministry, if you wanted. You could blame it on my absolutely hating the place and insisting that some nagging housewife that you leave, even if it was actually because, say, you were sick of them booting you from one department to the next."

Percy considered that, which was in itself a breakthrough; until very recently Percy would never have contemplated for a second that he might not belong at the Ministry after all.

"I won't say I haven't enjoyed my _many_ jobs at the Ministry, but it would seem that desk jobs are a little too exciting, truth be told," he said finally. "It's all corruption and intrigue. I might be in the market for something a little quieter."

"You know," Neville begun tentatively, "if you _did_ want to leave the Ministry, there's always the librarian job at Hogwarts. You won't find much quieter than that. Especially if you’re as hard on noisy rule-breaking students as Pince was. Though, you know, if you wanted to go to an even greater extreme, there's this nice quiet glacier I could recommend."

"The library is sounding better by the minute," Percy said with a grimace. "I don't think I'll ever complain about my mother's Christmas jumpers again after having to wear that huge Muggle balloon suit they call a 'parka'. But librarian…" Neville could see Percy puffing up by the second. "I'm better than that. I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after students and sorting through books."

Which was, in essence, almost the definition of Neville's job, but he found he really didn't mind Percy's bluntness. It was growing on him.

Neville grinned. "Well that rules out the other profession I was going to suggest."

"What was that?"

"A lawyer. You're perfectly suited to it, and you seem to have every tiny bit of legislation the Ministry's ever produced memorised already."

"If you remember, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was one of the people who requested I be transferred because he didn't like me," Percy sighed.

Neville shrugged. "Who said anything about working at the Ministry? You could join a firm where they don't care how pompous you are – or who you're falling into bed with – as long as you bring in the Galleons. And once you make a name for yourself, you could even be self-employed if you wanted."

Percy frowned in though. "I never even thought about it," he admitted.

"That's because you never thought even for a second about the possibility that you didn't have to work for the Ministry," Neville said knowingly.

Percy frowned for a little while longer before his face morphed into the slightest of smiles. "I suppose I could look into it tomorrow."

"I'd say there would certainly be a shortage of lawyers at the moment, what with all the people stuck in Azkaban and all the Ministers accused of illegal use of magical surveillance technology who’ll have to be represented before the Wizengamot. And after you're done with that, I know a certain someone who needs legal advice about how to appeal a decision of the Ministry not to support a research project. And how to sue the bloody _Daily Prophet_ for libel, at that."

"Take it easy," Percy said. "One step at a time."

Neville kissed him and then broke away and murmured, "Isn't that what I've been trying to tell you?"

Percy laughed, which sounded foreign but also very nice to Neville's ears.

"So it is," Percy admitted. And then he initiated the next kiss.

And the one after.

~FIN~


End file.
